Criterion is singular; criteria is plural

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Why do so many people get this wrong? Should we just accept it? It drives me crazy but it's so widespread I wonder if maybe we should just accept that the word 'criterion' is disappearing.

― moley, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 06:01 (eighteen years ago)

yeah, and what about "data"? when's the last time somebody asked you for a piece of datum?

― Edward III, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 06:22 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.criterionco.com/images/logotype_vert.gif

― Edward III, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 06:23 (eighteen years ago)

a piece of 'data' is grammatically correct, for it is a single piece of many different data. this word is practically never used incorrectly, i'm afraid.

― unfished business, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 06:33 (eighteen years ago)

A DATA POINT

― get bent, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 06:35 (eighteen years ago)

SIMULACRUM, SIMULACRA

― get bent, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 06:35 (eighteen years ago)

a data point = a point ascertained by viewing (more than one) data.

― unfished business, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 06:39 (eighteen years ago)

LJ, you are quite a piece of posters!

― nabisco, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 06:43 (eighteen years ago)

one of many

― unfished business, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 06:50 (eighteen years ago)

this word is practically never used incorrectly, i'm afraid.

Almost everyone nowadays would say "This data shows that...", instead of "These data show that...". If you still think of 'datum' as a countable noun with 'data' as the plural, then you would have to say that most people use the word wrongly. But most people think of data as an uncountable noun without a plural or a singular.

― Nasty, Brutish & Short, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 08:10 (eighteen years ago)

In other words, if you think the correct way is to say 'a datum, two data, three data...' (same as 'a poster, two posters...') then it's obviously wrong to say 'a piece of data' (or 'a piece of posters'). But if you think of data as uncountable, like 'furniture' (where you can't say 'one furniture, two furnitures...', you have to say 'some furniture' or 'a piece / two pieces of furniture'), then it's OK to say 'a piece of data'.

Nobody actually thinks that 'data' is the singular form - nobody says 'a data'.

― Nasty, Brutish & Short, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 08:21 (eighteen years ago)

i speak english, not latin.

― abanana, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 08:45 (eighteen years ago)

data is one of those nouns, like 'copiae' in latin, or 'means' in english, where the plural is the only version used. as with 'furniture', it is very much OK to use 'a piece of data' IMO.

― unfished business, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 09:02 (eighteen years ago)

data is one of those nouns....where the plural is the only version used

No, it's not. In most people's eyes there is no plural, as it's an uncountable noun. You can't use the construction 'a piece of + [plural of countable noun]', it sounds ridiculous: ; 'a piece of children' , 'a piece of socks', etc. But with uncountable nouns you either 'some ___' ('some wine', 'some rice', 'some chocolate', 'some data') or the construction 'a ____ of ______' ('a bottle of wine', 'a grain of rice', 'a bar of chocolate', 'a piece of data').

There are people who still use 'datum' as the singular and 'data' as the plural, but these are the same kind of people that say 'pianoforte'.

― Nasty, Brutish & Short, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 10:37 (eighteen years ago)

I always thought this was the same with scampi. Apparently, though, the singular of scampi is "scampo". Weird.

― peteR, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 10:41 (eighteen years ago)

me to thread

― Mark C, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 11:00 (eighteen years ago)

Criterion is singular; criteria is plural

criteria are plural, shirley?

ooh i'm gaggin' for a panini though (hi mark)

― CarsmileSteve, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 15:08 (eighteen years ago)

like a red flag to a bull..

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 15:11 (eighteen years ago)

Joffe lifts a finger, and a scampi darts about

and the BBC wouldn't get that wrong, not in the 'perfect english' early eventies broadcasting days, would they?

― Mark G, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 15:11 (eighteen years ago)

Suck my dicks, Steve :)

― Mark C, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 15:11 (eighteen years ago)

i actually say "criterion" all the time, and i enjoy seeing people's faces as they react to it. it usually goes 1) what the hell did he just say 2) is he some kind of knob 3) oh actually i understand what that means, i know that word 4) i will defer knob-judgment til later cause now i haven't been listening to what he's talking about and i'd better concentrate. in the meantime i have taken their wallet.

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 15:13 (eighteen years ago)

hold on, didn't joffe haf a whole handful of scampi though? one on each finger?

― CarsmileSteve, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 15:21 (eighteen years ago)

Such mistakes are usually the result of the influence of the medium.

― Hurting 2, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 15:26 (eighteen years ago)

I think we've had this conversation wrt biscotti.

― teeny, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 15:26 (eighteen years ago)

phenomenon, singular
phenomena, plural

― elmo argonaut, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 15:28 (eighteen years ago)

I think we've had this conversation wrt biscotti.

"I'd like a biscotti" totally grates on my ears and I don't even speak Italian. Why don't you just order a double expresso with that and while you're at it stab me in the face.

― Hurting 2, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 15:31 (eighteen years ago)

appendix --> appendices
cervix --> cervices
index --> indices
matrix --> matrices
vortex --> vortices

― elmo argonaut, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 15:35 (eighteen years ago)

Spandex

― Mark G, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 15:38 (eighteen years ago)

Criterion/criteria actually drives me crazy, I have to correct people all the time at work (I don't do it to be an asshole, just so it doesn't get published with wrong usage).

― Jordan, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 15:42 (eighteen years ago)

http://cdn.channel.aol.com/channels/05/03/43a6edb9-00165-0607b-400cb8e1
"Tell you what -- how bout I give you 25 cent for one fettucino"

― Hurting 2, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 15:45 (eighteen years ago)

fettucinus

― Jordan, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 15:46 (eighteen years ago)

I haven't really noticed people saying 'a phenomena' or 'a criteria'. Is it just an American problem or do I live in a bubble?

― Nasty, Brutish & Short, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 15:52 (eighteen years ago)

Maybe you don't hang around people who are idiots.

― kenan, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 15:53 (eighteen years ago)

That can really skew your worldview.

― kenan, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 15:53 (eighteen years ago)

I can't think of Joffe without thinking of tortoise heads. Pfffffftttt....

Ahem. [link This from epicurious...]http://www.epicurious.com/cooking/how_to/food_dictionary/entry?id=4445[\link]

I'm right, and the entire early seventies BBC (see Life on Mars thread) is wrong. Yay me.

― peteR, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 16:12 (eighteen years ago)

I can't, however, post links.

― peteR, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 16:13 (eighteen years ago)

lol @ chris rock fettucino

― and what, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 16:13 (eighteen years ago)

s/be /link there.

― Mark G, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 16:15 (eighteen years ago)

Ah. Was wondering. And I do unix, too. Shame on me, and thankyou Mark.

― peteR, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 16:21 (eighteen years ago)

'A phenomena' cropped up in a lyric once when I was producing a singer. I had the damn singer change her damn lyric. I can put up with all kinds of bad behaviour in the studio, but poor grammar is unacceptable.

― moley, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 22:32 (eighteen years ago)

what's the plural of "morbius"?

― ghost rider, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 22:33 (eighteen years ago)

Die and Dice

I have no given up on this distinction and tell my students to Roll a Dice so as to avoid the weary conflict.

― Slumpman, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 22:40 (eighteen years ago)

blah!

― Dr Morbius Schefter, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 22:43 (eighteen years ago)

Podium+one or more=Podia

― Abbott, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 23:59 (eighteen years ago)

'Less' when the correct word is 'fewer' - eg, 'There are less people posting on ILX these days'. That one is pretty widespread.

― moley, Thursday, 8 March 2007 00:49 (eighteen years ago)

The less/fewer distinction is a circa C18 wank distinction, like so many other things. Still, I follow it, to my shame and weakness.

― Alba, Thursday, 8 March 2007 01:06 (eighteen years ago)

Latin and Greek plurals are arguably much more wanky than the less/fewer distinction. I'd feel a bit strange asking a university department what "focii" they offered with a major, for example. I also don't think I could order "two cappuccini" with a straight face - so it's all sort of arbitrary.

― Hurting 2, Thursday, 8 March 2007 01:53 (eighteen years ago)

what's the plural of "morbius"?

morbi

― Edward III, Thursday, 8 March 2007 01:55 (eighteen years ago)

morbia

― Curt1s Stephens, Thursday, 8 March 2007 01:57 (eighteen years ago)

The Doctors Morbid

― remy bean, Thursday, 8 March 2007 02:00 (eighteen years ago)

"focii"

With the -us to -i substitution, it would be foci. I think 'focuses' would be acceptable due to wide usage, unless you wanted to explicitly avoid confusion with the verb form 'focuses'.

"Morbius" would be pluralized as "Morbii." It wouldn't be "Morbia" unless it were a weird irregular noun, since only neuter nouns [-um] get pluralized with -a. (Chucklemeisters take note.)

― elmo argonaut, Thursday, 8 March 2007 05:20 (eighteen years ago)

sorry, that was really wanktastic of me. i don't get much chance to flex my atrophied latin muscles anymore.

― elmo argonaut, Thursday, 8 March 2007 05:22 (eighteen years ago)

That creates a very specific image in my mind, elmo.

― moley, Thursday, 8 March 2007 05:39 (eighteen years ago)

I need to track down words based on Irish and correctly deliniate their gender, tense and whether they're being used in first, second or third person.

It's one of the biggest reasons I've yet to really get down to my studies in the language. Hardly any words aren't subject to at least one of those...

It's kind of sad that so many people(not just here, I've had similar discussions) undrstand the need to pronouce Latin/Ancient Greek words correctly, but loan words from languages still in regular usage get ignored.

I CRINGE when I hear someone say they want to sing some 'Keh ree oh key' or worse 'k'roh key' neither even close to how it's SPELLED. Ka ra o ke.

Then there's things like 'German' which is a leftover word used as an insult against the people who came to be 'Deutschlander.'

― Windy G Moisture, Thursday, 8 March 2007 06:17 (eighteen years ago)

Octopus is singular, octopuses is plural, octopi is NOT A BLOODY WORD.

― V, Thursday, 8 March 2007 06:47 (eighteen years ago)

"Octopi" is in the OED.

So is "octopodes," if you want to get all dead-languagey about it.

― nabisco, Thursday, 8 March 2007 07:34 (eighteen years ago)

Octopi = thinking Greek is Latin
Octopodes = thinking English is Greek

― nabisco, Thursday, 8 March 2007 07:35 (eighteen years ago)

OTMI.

― Alba, Thursday, 8 March 2007 08:44 (eighteen years ago)

I CRINGE when I hear someone say they want to sing some 'Keh ree oh key' or worse 'k'roh key' neither even close to how it's SPELLED. Ka ra o ke.

I would NEVER go karaoke-ing with someone who pronounced it "kah-rah-oh-kay."

― max, Thursday, 8 March 2007 08:50 (eighteen years ago)

Unless that person was George Takei. Then it would be cool.

― Trayce, Thursday, 8 March 2007 08:53 (eighteen years ago)

i dunno. a lot of this is futile. i get wound up by people who think they're brilliant because they pronounce "restaurant" with a silent "t" at the end. We've been using this word for bloody ages, no need in carrying on pretending it's still an exotic French borrowing. Same with these Latin/Greek endings - we're speaking English, not another language - so why do we still insist on applying these ridiculous rules to it? It's not as if we're pronouncing any of these words anything like the original borrowing, so why pretend? Most (indeed perhaps all) of our words are borrowed from some other language but I'm not going to sit around working out the etymology of every word I use and then applying the correct grammatical rule to it.

― the next grozart, Thursday, 8 March 2007 10:41 (eighteen years ago)

"I would NEVER go karaoke-ing with someone who pronounced it "kah-rah-oh-kay." "
What's that supposed to mean?
bad grammar's good SOMETIMES?

― Windy G Moisture, Thursday, 8 March 2007 17:07 (eighteen years ago)

I'm honestly just really confused by that statement.

― Windy G Moisture, Thursday, 8 March 2007 17:09 (eighteen years ago)

I'm by no means strict in applying rules in everyday speech -- if it sounds natural and has a good chance of being understood, I'll use it. If it sounds awkward, I won't. "Octopi", IMHO, is less awkward than "octopuses".

I *do* get annoyed by people who humorously pluralize 'penis' as 'penii' or something like that. And if someone other than a doctor used 'testis' as the singular form of 'testes,' I'd be a bit baffled.

― elmo argonaut, Thursday, 8 March 2007 17:17 (eighteen years ago)

I'm kind of with Grozart. As unfaithful as it is to the Japanese, the accepted English pronunciation of "karaoke" is now "carry-okey." I have a friend who insists on pronouncing Bjork's name as "byerk," which I know yadda yadda is how the Icelandic say it, but it always makes him sound like a pretentious doofus.

― jaymc, Thursday, 8 March 2007 17:20 (eighteen years ago)

I was just thinking the other day about the strange nuances of NPR radio announcer pronunciation. Like most of their reporters will pronounce a Latin American place name essentially properly but with flat American intonation "Bwe-nos Eye-res," but a reporter of Hispanic descent will break into an accent just to pronounce the name, even though he/she is displaying no trace of accent in the rest of the report. But if a non-native-speaking reporter pronounced Buenos Aires with the proper accent it would sound weird, even if they could do it. Don't even get me started on Sylvia PO-JO-LEH

― Hurting 2, Friday, 9 March 2007 02:23 (eighteen years ago)

I can't hear "irregardless" without wincing. People should just say "regardless", because it means the same thing, and is shorter and easier to say.

― Dominique, Friday, 9 March 2007 02:57 (eighteen years ago)

what's the plural of 'anal'?

― darraghmac, Friday, 9 March 2007 03:41 (eighteen years ago)

"Anal" is not a noun.

― Hurting 2, Friday, 9 March 2007 03:51 (eighteen years ago)

bad grammar's good SOMETIMES?

Why, yes. Yes, it is.

― libcrypt, Friday, 9 March 2007 03:53 (eighteen years ago)

Bad grammar is good when the speaker knows what he's doing. If he's just stupid, it's merely annoying.

― libcrypt, Friday, 9 March 2007 03:54 (eighteen years ago)

Well, few people who say Carry Okey know what they'e doing, and every time I'm forced to say it some someone who doesn't know better doesn't look at my like I'm on coke...I die a little inside.

― Windy G Moisture, Friday, 9 March 2007 04:32 (eighteen years ago)

I fear people who "know what they're doing" at karaoke.

― libcrypt, Friday, 9 March 2007 04:33 (eighteen years ago)

1) Pronunciation is not grammar.

2) Sorry, but if you say "KA RA O KE" you're a tool.

― Hurting 2, Friday, 9 March 2007 04:35 (eighteen years ago)

Do you roll your "r"s when you order a burrito?

― Hurting 2, Friday, 9 March 2007 04:38 (eighteen years ago)

Kerioki is also Japanese.
Thus, grammar applies.
Ocean of Kicks is a different word.

Thus
1. I was not the one to bring up pronounciation.
2. fuck you.

― Windy G Moisture, Friday, 9 March 2007 04:42 (eighteen years ago)

Pronunciation of japanese words deserves a separate thread. I never quite know how to pronounce 'bukake'.

― moley, Friday, 9 March 2007 05:24 (eighteen years ago)

This can cause embarassment at some social events I attend.

― moley, Friday, 9 March 2007 05:27 (eighteen years ago)

How to Make Friends, and Sense
by Windy G. Moisture

― nabisco, Friday, 9 March 2007 05:36 (eighteen years ago)

boo cock ay.

― Curt1s Stephens, Friday, 9 March 2007 05:39 (eighteen years ago)

boo! cock eye!

― darraghmac, Friday, 9 March 2007 05:48 (eighteen years ago)

How to Make Friends, and Sense
by Windy G. Moisture

Oh, huh. I just got the "rain man" reference in Mr. Moisture's nick.

― libcrypt, Friday, 9 March 2007 05:48 (eighteen years ago)

ILX will proclaim Windy to be a "savant" years from now, mark my words.

― libcrypt, Friday, 9 March 2007 05:49 (eighteen years ago)

I think I'm gonna commit Harry Carey.

― Hurting 2, Friday, 9 March 2007 05:50 (eighteen years ago)

I'm trying to follow this argument -- so it's not appropriate for English-speakers to appropriate a Japanese word into an English lexical structure / phonemic set, even though Japanese culture appropriates English words in a reciprocal way all the time?

― elmo argonaut, Friday, 9 March 2007 05:50 (eighteen years ago)

I didn't even think of that, but good point.

― Hurting 2, Friday, 9 March 2007 05:51 (eighteen years ago)

ugh i used "appropriate" as both a noun and verb in the same sentence on a grammar thread, plz kill me before the vultures come

― elmo argonaut, Friday, 9 March 2007 05:52 (eighteen years ago)

I'm just wondering if this is Japanophile grammar snobbery or GLOBAL grammar snobbery. I mean, if the former, then we should view the (naive?) Japanese usage of English terms in its cultural context.

If we're being polyglot snobs, we can be all HAHA ENGRISH with impunity, I guess.

― elmo argonaut, Friday, 9 March 2007 05:58 (eighteen years ago)

Maybe if we shared a border with Japan and Mexico was halfway around the world I'd be expecting people to pronounce ka-ra-o-ke properly and defending people who say que-sa-dil-la

― Hurting 2, Friday, 9 March 2007 06:00 (eighteen years ago)

i think you have to allow for local usages a lot though- if it's valid for (for instance) someone from cornwall or maine to pronounce english words differently with their accents, then surely you have to allow the same kinda thing for japanese/french etc words slipped in to english conversations.

i have to admit, i don't really understand how many ways one can pronounce karaoke, by the way.

― darraghmac, Friday, 9 March 2007 06:03 (eighteen years ago)

I'd like to think there's some middle ground in between the Japanese pronunciation and "kerry oaky"

― Hurting 2, Friday, 9 March 2007 06:05 (eighteen years ago)

I mean -- Any English speaker with no knowledge of Japanese is going to pronounce "KARAOKE" as best they can by English language standards. The "AO" sequence in the middle is interpreted as a dipthong, and therefore a yod (unwritten y-sound) is added to ease the transition. Hence, KARRY OKEY.

― elmo argonaut, Friday, 9 March 2007 06:08 (eighteen years ago)

what is the japanese pronunciation? carayoki is about the only way i've ever heard it pronounced

― darraghmac, Friday, 9 March 2007 06:09 (eighteen years ago)

I guess a better approximation would be kahrry okey? That's about as close as I can get to ka ra o ke and still sound like I'm speaking English (nb I already knew it was "supposed" to be pronounced ka ra o ke)

― Curt1s Stephens, Friday, 9 March 2007 06:10 (eighteen years ago)

OH MY GOD I CAN'T SEE ANY DIFFERENCE I QUIT THIS THREAD!

― darraghmac, Friday, 9 March 2007 06:12 (eighteen years ago)

I wonder if nu-ilx allows unicode characters so I can write a proper schwa:

Ə

― elmo argonaut, Friday, 9 March 2007 06:12 (eighteen years ago)

FOILED!

― elmo argonaut, Friday, 9 March 2007 06:12 (eighteen years ago)

"I'm trying to follow this argument -- so it's not appropriate for English-speakers to appropriate a Japanese word into an English lexical structure / phonemic set, even though Japanese culture appropriates English words in a reciprocal way all the time?"
Well, the difference is that is't totally possible to get most of the way there for English speakers.
it's actually close to impossible to get it right. Most of the Jpanese people I know can't even HEAR the difference between "Mom" and "Ma'am" let alone say both.
it takes 20 minutes to explain what the difference between an R and an L is.

We have the ability to say large number of sounds and combine individual consonants and vowels, and we really have 15 vowels sounds.
Japan has 5 vowel sounds, no dipthongs, and one disconnected consonnant.

"Oh, huh. I just got the "rain man" reference in Mr. Moisture's nick."
Actually it's a ridiculous Garm/ICS Vortex reference. To be exact, it's a reference to several parodies of their pseuonyms. Thus, it makes no sense.

And finally:
"How to Make Friends, and Sense
by Windy G. Moisture"
Hey, genius.
Turnabout is fair play.
I don't take kindly to a stranger calling me tool for no reason other than I dislike hearing things mispronounced -period-, not just in dead languages.
"HOW DARE YOU CARE ABOUT SOMETHING OTHER THAN LANGUAGES NO ONE USES IN THEIR DAILY LIVES!!!" is a really strange attitude, fundamentally.

What I said was "I agree. But I find it odd so few people care about living languages as well."
"You don't agree hard enough!" ?
Explain why caring about living languages is offensive eough to warrant an insult.

PS
WHAT THE HELL??
KAH(as in kapow, kaboom) RAU(au sounds like house, mouse) KAY!
Why is that hard for anyone?

English speakers are too used to total non-phonetic spellings...

― Windy G Moisture, Friday, 9 March 2007 07:01 (eighteen years ago)

"Octopi", IMHO, is less awkward than "octopuses".

I prefer octopussies.

― Edward III, Friday, 9 March 2007 07:13 (eighteen years ago)

I'm down with that.

― Windy G Moisture, Friday, 9 March 2007 07:24 (eighteen years ago)

KAH(as in kapow, kaboom) RAU(au sounds like house, mouse) KAY!
Why is that hard for anyone?

the "AO" in "taoism" is pronouned "OW"
the "AO" in "chaos" is pronounced "AY-AW"
the "AO" in "aorta" is pronounced "AY-OH"
the "AO" in "gaol" is pronouned "AY"
the "AO" in "extraordinary" is pronounced "OH"

so please don't act exasperated like you're pointing out some standard pronunciation rule, Windy

― elmo argonaut, Friday, 9 March 2007 07:24 (eighteen years ago)

Haha here comes a debate over whether the AO in "extraordinary" is technically pronounced schwa-O or whether the way people elide it to just O is now how it's pronounced.

― nabisco, Friday, 9 March 2007 07:34 (eighteen years ago)

regardless! my point stands.

(though I think "extra-ordinary" sounds clunky in comparion to the elided pronunciation.)

― elmo argonaut, Friday, 9 March 2007 07:38 (eighteen years ago)

fwiw, I thought the name "Windy G. Moisture" came from my gmail spam folder.

― elmo argonaut, Friday, 9 March 2007 07:49 (eighteen years ago)

"so please don't act exasperated like you're pointing out some standard pronunciation rule, Windy"
I'm exasperated because prople are having it explained to them and still not understanding it.
Not one of those is pronounced 'EE' either.

― Windy G Moisture, Friday, 9 March 2007 08:18 (eighteen years ago)

Windy, you only explained how it was pronounced a few posts back to be fair. I certainly had no knowledge of it being pronounced "Ker-OW-Ki" (or whatever) so next time somebody pronounces it the so-called "proper" way I won't be tempted to think they're inviting me to a martial arts chipsn'dips buffet.

I still stand by my comment above that really language is such a fluid and organic field with so many exceptions and anomalies that arguing over pronunciation and grammatical rules is often redundant. All countries borrow words from each other and these words eventually become their own. Japanese and English have swapped words many times and yet if repeated back to the original speaker would no longer be understood since said word has been "corrupted" to fit around the dynamics of its foster language.

That said, I still pronounce "Budweiser" as "Budv-eyes-er" and "Kraftwerk" as "Kraftverk" which I guess is just as bad as saying "restauran".

What gets me the most is people moaning about grammar and pronunciation in English.

― the next grozart, Friday, 9 March 2007 10:52 (eighteen years ago)

What I meant to say in brief is, if it sounds right, flows easily, isn't too clumsy to pronounce and most importantly is understandable then as far as I'm concerned, it is "good English". But people quibbling over certain intonations and pronunciations simply because they say it winds them up or they think it sounds ugly ought to think twice.

― the next grozart, Friday, 9 March 2007 10:58 (eighteen years ago)

we really have 15 vowels sounds

Americans might only have 15, in England we've got at least 20.

― Nasty, Brutish & Short, Friday, 9 March 2007 11:11 (eighteen years ago)

But karaoke isn't pronounced Ker-OW-Ki, it's pronounced carry-oh-kee. The Japanese word that it was derived from may well be pronounced like that, but the word's English now, not Japanese.

― The Wayward Johnny B, Friday, 9 March 2007 11:18 (eighteen years ago)

That said, I still pronounce "Budweiser" as "Budv-eyes-er"

There are some bars where I don't think that would be advisable.

― Hurting 2, Friday, 9 March 2007 14:43 (eighteen years ago)

FYI in his new book, N. Hr0nby uses the term "another think coming".

― Mark C, Friday, 9 March 2007 14:49 (eighteen years ago)

I'm exasperated because prople are having it explained to them and still not understanding it.

I understand you, I just don't agree with your position on the primacy of Japanese pronunciation.

Not one of those is pronounced 'EE' either.

No one is pronouncing it "ka-REE-key," that's your straw man. As I was explaining upthread, the most common English pronunciation of the word parses the "AO" as schwa-yod-OH, which produces the long E sound in order to transition to the O sound.

― elmo argonaut, Friday, 9 March 2007 15:06 (eighteen years ago)

Andrew, I think a lot of people say kar-ee-okey! It's a little graceless, but it's not unusual, is it? In my casual memory, anyway.

― Laurel, Friday, 9 March 2007 15:08 (eighteen years ago)

Johnny B OTM.

― elmo argonaut, Friday, 9 March 2007 15:09 (eighteen years ago)

Laurel is right - I hear it all the time.

― Hurting 2, Friday, 9 March 2007 15:35 (eighteen years ago)

I say "kar-ee-okey". Because everyone else does, and I fear someone asking me the embarrassing question, "Do you speak Japanese?" "Uh... no."

― kenan, Friday, 9 March 2007 15:39 (eighteen years ago)

if we could just type IPA characters we could clear this up real quick

― elmo argonaut, Friday, 9 March 2007 15:42 (eighteen years ago)

"What I meant to say in brief is, if it sounds right, flows easily, isn't too clumsy to pronounce and most importantly is understandable then as far as I'm concerned, it is "good English"."
Then why are you in this thread?

― Windy G Moisture, Friday, 9 March 2007 15:44 (eighteen years ago)

"But karaoke isn't pronounced Ker-OW-Ki, it's pronounced carry-oh-kee. The Japanese word that it was derived from may well be pronounced like that, but the word's English now, not Japanese."
Reading this was akin to watching someone walk into a closed wooden door.

Have you knoticed what this thread is about?
There are occasions that the greek or latin conjigations/pronnounciations have changed, yet we're here talking about what the correct/incorrect one is.

Why do people get one other's cases for liking Japan? I spent almost as much time in that first post talking about how Irish works(Hey, Mr O'Connel, did you know your [great grandfatherwhatever's] name was Connelly, but spelled Conealiagh?) and yet the next few posts were criticising my distaste the mispronounciation of Japanese.
Buh?

― Windy G Moisture, Friday, 9 March 2007 15:50 (eighteen years ago)

and "Kraftwerk" as "Kraftverk"

I do that all the time, but I always do it in this big phony German accent so everyone knows I'm just putting them on.

― kenan, Friday, 9 March 2007 15:51 (eighteen years ago)

"...the most common English pronunciation of the word parses the "AO" as schwa-yod-OH, which produces"
That's completely non-phonetic. I hate hate hate the fact that there's no 'English Comittee' like there is a French one.
The language is getting less and less phonetic, less and less grammatically logical...
Inglish Kuhmitee!
We need Umlauts for our 15 vowels, and a new letter for the 'ch' sound, since the C itself is utterly useless other than for backwards compatability with Latin...

― Windy G Moisture, Friday, 9 March 2007 15:55 (eighteen years ago)

i just read that the word literally means "empty orchestra," and that the "oke" part is actually a shortening of the Japanese phoneticization of the word "orchestra." So perhaps it should actually be pronounced "Ka-ra-or-ke"

― Hurting 2, Friday, 9 March 2007 15:57 (eighteen years ago)

BLAME THE LANGUAGE

― elmo argonaut, Friday, 9 March 2007 16:01 (eighteen years ago)

surprise surprise, this thread got snotty and bitchy like a fight at a stamp collector's fair...

― darraghmac, Friday, 9 March 2007 16:05 (eighteen years ago)

... because a left-field quip is neither snotty nor bitchy, right?

― elmo argonaut, Friday, 9 March 2007 16:10 (eighteen years ago)

snap! guilty as all fuckout of course, but i was merely pointing it out rather than aiming it at one person.

― darraghmac, Friday, 9 March 2007 16:25 (eighteen years ago)

just a bit of fun

― elmo argonaut, Friday, 9 March 2007 16:26 (eighteen years ago)

how do japanese people pronounce the english version of karaoke though?

― darraghmac, Friday, 9 March 2007 16:28 (eighteen years ago)

I hate hate hate the fact that there's no 'English Comittee' like there is a French one.
The language is getting less and less phonetic, less and less grammatically logical...
Inglish Kuhmitee!

Let it go, dude. The 'language' isn't getting less phonetic (how can it? that doesn't mean anything), but the way we pronounce things is slowly diverging further and further from the way we did when the spellings were first laid out hundreds of years ago. That's just the way it goes: languages evolve over time. Nothing is fixed. You can't form a committee to freeze language in time. Grammar isn't necessarily logical either - English isn't the same as Mathematics.

― Nasty, Brutish & Short, Friday, 9 March 2007 17:10 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.spellingsociety.org/news/media2006/images/spbee2006.jpg

― elmo argonaut, Friday, 9 March 2007 17:52 (eighteen years ago)

You can't form a committee to freeze language in time

http://images.encarta.msn.com/xrefmedia/sharemed/targets/images/pho/1871c/1871ca40.jpg

― C0L1N B..., Friday, 9 March 2007 18:02 (eighteen years ago)

I think this "schwa plus yod" combination Elmo mentions tends to come out as "ee," because we're not used to using the yod with short vowels.

― jaymc, Friday, 9 March 2007 18:16 (eighteen years ago)

I think I will pronounce the word "croaky" from now on to add that descriptive connotation.

― elmo argonaut, Friday, 9 March 2007 18:30 (eighteen years ago)

"That's just the way it goes: languages evolve over time. Nothing is fixed."
Why are you in this thread?

― Windy G Moisture, Saturday, 10 March 2007 00:16 (eighteen years ago)

y r u n dis tred?

― nabisco, Saturday, 10 March 2007 00:22 (eighteen years ago)

We'd need a new letter for 'th' too.

― Windy G Moisture, Saturday, 10 March 2007 00:25 (eighteen years ago)

I think words are more worth fighting over when you preserve some shade of their meaning by preserving the "proper" usage or form. Knowing the media/medium thing actually sharpens the way one thinks about media, for example.

― Hurting 2, Saturday, 10 March 2007 00:41 (eighteen years ago)

..and that's only true for dead languages?

― Windy G Moisture, Saturday, 10 March 2007 00:49 (eighteen years ago)

I really have no idea where you're coming from, Windy. Maybe I DON'T get it. Maybe you should state your argument instead of asking people why they are contributing to this thread (how dare they!).

― elmo argonaut, Saturday, 10 March 2007 01:11 (eighteen years ago)

My point is this:
Why do people care about the correct conjugation and pronounciation(I didn't being that up) of dead languages, but regularly mispronounce, misuse, and improperly conjugate words from languages in use?
That's what I said the first time, and several times since. The responce seems to be "Language changes, and English sounds better when you fuck up."
My responce(Why are you here, then?) is asking if they think that, why are they in here arguing the opposite for dead languages?
Why do people care about dead languages more than living?

Every time I hear someone invent a plural for a Japanese noun I twitch. (grammatical enough for you folks?)
Again, people care about conjugating dead languages and using them to develope new terms(but still use old grammar), but when using living languages, it seems(who knows the mind of another?) that they can't be arsed to learn how to conjugate word used every day in a living language...

― Windy G Moisture, Saturday, 10 March 2007 01:30 (eighteen years ago)

Please excuse my reduncancy in that fucked-up sentence.

― Windy G Moisture, Saturday, 10 March 2007 01:38 (eighteen years ago)

Thank you, that's actually a really good question that I don't have an answer for at the moment. I'll think about that for a while. Hm.

― elmo argonaut, Saturday, 10 March 2007 01:42 (eighteen years ago)

Hmm indeed.

As little as I know about Japanese, I would certainly never say "Samurais," let alone (god forbid) "Sushis." But you could probably come up with an example of a Japanese pluralization mistake I would make. I think the answer probably lies in academia and the prevalence for many years of Latin and Greek in European and American universities - they were seen as foundational whereas Japanese would have been a specialty. Also (due in part to that) we obviously owe much much more of our language to Latin and Greek than to Japanese, so there's a lot more awareness and even intuitive understanding of grammatical rules from those languages.

― Hurting 2, Saturday, 10 March 2007 01:51 (eighteen years ago)

Good points.
I think that's more of an understanding issue than a caring... I dunno.

― Windy G Moisture, Saturday, 10 March 2007 02:08 (eighteen years ago)

Prescriptivism regarding language is really descriptivism regarding economic and social class structures.

― libcrypt, Saturday, 10 March 2007 03:01 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah, per Hurting, the difference is that new borrowings are usually random loan words, whereas a lot of the dead-language stuff isn't about "loans," it's about the basis of a whole segment of our language. And since parts of English grammar and usage were standardized -- artificially or not* -- around Latin and Greek classical education, messing those up actually chips away at the logical structure of the whole thing.

(* = I don't entirely buy it when people say "that rule doesn't matter, it's just an 18th-century fake-Latin thing," cuz ... well, some dudes put some worthwhile work into helping standardize the language, and they made a fairly conscious decision to work with Latin as a model, rather than Germanic stuff. Artificial in imposed via class power, sure, but the overall point was still to help make the language more consistent and systematized, which is a nice thing. And most of the decisions they made that actually harmed the consistency and flexibility of the language in the service of fake-Latin have already long died off.)

― nabisco, Saturday, 10 March 2007 03:20 (eighteen years ago)

Admittedly, there is no way to make a truly logical and consistant language(even 10 pages of Wittgenstein will tell you that), but I think we could at least try to have consistancy and rules.

Communication is important, and standardizing language simplifies that.

― Windy G Moisture, Saturday, 10 March 2007 03:28 (eighteen years ago)

Since I don't know a lick of Japanese and since I don't want to offend those who do, I have decided not only no longer to incorrectly pronounce and pluralize terms of Japanese origin, but I shall cease using them altogether. Thus, instead of "karaoke", I shall say, "an easy excuse to embarass yrself when drunk". Instead of "sushi", I shall say, "overpriced fish on white rice with seaweed". And instead of "anime", I shall say, "cartoons with balloon-eyed girlies that undersocialized boys like to masturbate at". Then nobody will be offended.

― libcrypt, Saturday, 10 March 2007 03:30 (eighteen years ago)

Haha also it's pretty difficult to think of a way for a widespread, coherent language to develop that's not based on SOME form of power.

― nabisco, Saturday, 10 March 2007 03:32 (eighteen years ago)

Exactly.
Examples, Irish developed under several forms of leadership within the country itself, then with the invasion and takeover by the british there was no teaching or standardization. The result is some severly different dialects.
Save the invasion there are similar issues with Japanese. The dialects are so different that some Japanese people can't understand each other. Touhoku(I may have misspelled that) dialect is different enough that the research of it is a TV series in Japan.

Some films made in Scottland(entirely in English) are subtitled for their American release due to the sever dialect differences.

― Windy G Moisture, Saturday, 10 March 2007 03:39 (eighteen years ago)

I'm not totally against a prescriptive theory of language, but it's a lot more useful when such a philosophy is used to facilitate communication than when it's used to nerdily denounce those who don't follow THE RULEZ.

― libcrypt, Saturday, 10 March 2007 03:41 (eighteen years ago)

Those 'RULEZ' are what keeps the communication working.

― Windy G Moisture, Saturday, 10 March 2007 03:43 (eighteen years ago)

The rules are admittedly poor description of the past use of language. Natural languages, as opposed to machine languages, are not developed top-down, with a BNF description of the grammar. No, natural languages develop according to rules far more complex than those of mere syntax. The fact that we can apply some very ill-formed "rules" to natural languages is more a testament to human imagination than it is to the objects of the rules themselves.

― libcrypt, Saturday, 10 March 2007 03:49 (eighteen years ago)

I understand your point on a philosophical level. However, if we have no rules at all then communication becomes a near impossible task.

― Windy G Moisture, Saturday, 10 March 2007 03:56 (eighteen years ago)

Three questions any true rule-prescriptivist must answer to be taken seriously:

1. If natural languages have "rules", then WHO is responsible for creating and maintaining said rules? A government? A self-anointed group of high-minded nerds? The ubermensch?
2. If natural languages have "rules", then what, precisely, ARE these rules? A search for a very small subset of the "rules" darn near killed Gnome Chompsky. Stating natural language rules in a precise fashion turns out to be impossibly difficult, and nearly any off-the-cuff contender can be shot down faster'n a helium-filled piggie.
3. If natural languages have rules, then WHEN were these rules set? Was it some pre-linguistic era? Or do the rules change over time. And if they do change over time, how to we access the currently valid set of rules?

― libcrypt, Saturday, 10 March 2007 04:01 (eighteen years ago)

Lib I think at any given moment that's true for like 99% of a language, but:

(a) there's inevitably some high-level fine-tuning point where a bit of top-down guidance eases the way, like the fact that the term "natural language" was hashed out by a linguist elite before coming to you and I, and both the hashing-out and the coming-to-us part were dependent on people having to say "wait, you're misuing that term"; plus

(b) our language has reached a potential for complexity and precision that depends in part on people sitting down and learning it; it's a tool we can do amazing things with just with natural language acquisition and interaction, but there's this extra level of really super-incredible stuff that requires studying how to use the tool right. (Like how you can build a house just about any way you like, but putting up a skyscraper will take a little coordination and planning.)

I don't think people who say prescriptive stuff have some kind of gripe with the natural evolution of language, and I'm not sure why it's imagined that they do. Apart from flat-out pedants and sticklers, I think people usually stick up for rules when they genuinely believe the rule makes the language better (more precise, more expressive, etc.) and would hate to see a good distinction fall by the wayside. (Especially when the people they're arguing with aren't claiming the alternative is more expressive or richly idiomatic or anything, but just saying "whatever, I don't feel like learning another rule.")

― nabisco, Saturday, 10 March 2007 04:07 (eighteen years ago)

xpost Libcrypt I have no idea what kind of straw "prescriptivist" you're talking about here -- you're doing that thing where people pretend there are Evil Prescriptivists out there who think language has a divine eternal state. Nobody like that exists. The evilest "prescriptivists" get is, like, noting that "irregardless" is non-standard in the dictionary.

― nabisco, Saturday, 10 March 2007 04:11 (eighteen years ago)

In fact the only existence of prescription in the ENTIRE UNIVERSE is in dictionaries, usage books, style guides, all of which exist because people turn to them for prescriptive advice! (A guy writing a resume who looks something up in the dictionary is not looking to learn that the way he'd normally say it is just fine -- he wants to know what a reasonable, well-informed advisor would suggest is best.)

― nabisco, Saturday, 10 March 2007 04:15 (eighteen years ago)

nabisco: I've certainly met quite a few rule-prescriptivists in my time: The fallacy of these folks is in attributing some kind of simple, absolute recursive authority to their own rule-sources, a notion that cannot withstand even a half-hearted examination. Hardly a straw man, few rule-prescriptivists I've known are willing to allow for a more pragmatic, descriptivo-prescriptivism, whereby natural language rules aren't transmitted, inviolate, from generation to generation, but instead take on a kind of social validity that, in my opinion, largely derives from class. In particular, few armchair rule-prescriptivists are willing to say that THEY can change the rules (to a certain degree) without necessarily destroying their validity. For, to do so undermines the unspoken apparatus of legitimacy they use to denounce those who happen to follow DIFFERENT, but perhaps equally valid, rules. Once it's allowed that the sources of validity of a linguistic rule are mere humans, then our democratic instincts chafe at proclaiming some folks more authoritiative than others, while the notion of multiple, valid rulesets is distasteful, if not seemingly contradictory.

In short, those who use prescriptivism to denounce dialects distinct from their own, which are nevertheless rule-bound entities -- and believe me, there are millions of folks who love to play this game -- fail to appreciate the sources of legitimacy of their own dialects and the true reasons for the existence of rules.

To say that no rule-prescriptivists exist is somewhat short-sighted, considering how much fun grammar nazis have on this very board. Corner yr fave grammar nazi at a party when he's had one or two and ask him whether he has the power to create legitimate rules for his fave natural language. I'll betcha he'll say "no".

― libcrypt, Saturday, 10 March 2007 04:56 (eighteen years ago)

"1. If natural languages have "rules", then WHO is responsible for creating and maintaining said rules? A government? A self-anointed group of high-minded nerds? The ubermensch?
2. If natural languages have "rules", then what, precisely, ARE these rules? A search for a very small subset of the "rules" darn near killed Gnome Chompsky. Stating natural language rules in a precise fashion turns out to be impossibly difficult, and nearly any off-the-cuff contender can be shot down faster'n a helium-filled piggie.
3. If natural languages have rules, then WHEN were these rules set? Was it some pre-linguistic era? Or do the rules change over time. And if they do change over time, how to we access the currently valid set of rules?"
I've read Wittgenstein.

Pragmatism, dude.
"FUCK YOUUU!! I WANNA USE WERDS HOW I WANNA!" is how this is sounding. I realise that's not what you're saying, but the fact that you seem to refuse to accept that people need rules to communicate is baffling, and that explaination is the closest thing to logical I can figure out *shrug*
Things like this approach moral relativism in their annoyance and complicated nature.

― Windy G Moisture, Saturday, 10 March 2007 05:01 (eighteen years ago)

I realise that's not what you're saying, but the fact that you seem to refuse to accept that people need rules to communicate is baffling

People don't need rules. Rules need people.

― libcrypt, Saturday, 10 March 2007 05:09 (eighteen years ago)

I've read Wittgenstein.

So you keep reminding us. Nobody takes the Tractatus seriously anymore, dude. Hell, nobody took it seriously then except perhaps for Ayer.

― libcrypt, Saturday, 10 March 2007 05:13 (eighteen years ago)

Wow.
I guess it's OK for me to kill people I don't like, take things without paying, and tell you to fuck off for being annoying.
Nope.

You're wrong. It's OK to be wrong.

Funny thing: you're using linguistic logic to make your arguments. Without linguistic rules your arguments are literally meaningless.

But since we don't need linguistic rules:
FrusreameSAas saaIasdnnngoee. ASaudnopw38naa.vaaaw2-=0p=003=sask. IAAnnaa0wauwjadkhw98n20ff;'
a822-1n aao0--0u2-0jx^23akujn0022j203aAA==-!deklaasjuvvpb]aopas!

― Windy G Moisture, Saturday, 10 March 2007 05:14 (eighteen years ago)

"So you keep reminding us. Nobody takes the Tractatus seriously anymore, dude. Hell, nobody took it seriously then except perhaps for Ayer. "
have you read Philisophical Investigations? Because that's what's relevant here.

How far are you into your philosophy class? Because you seem to think you know things, and an important thing to know when studying philosphy is YOU DON'T KNOW SHIT AND PROBABLY NEVER WILL.
Anyone who studies philosophy and doesn't realise that never learns anything of value from it.

have you read more than me? Yeah. But you seem to think you know shit.
Yeah. You Know Shit. Same as the rest of us.

― Windy G Moisture, Saturday, 10 March 2007 05:18 (eighteen years ago)

linguistic philosophy died in the 50s dude

― abanana, Saturday, 10 March 2007 05:19 (eighteen years ago)

Are you sure it's autism you have and not tourette's?

― libcrypt, Saturday, 10 March 2007 05:21 (eighteen years ago)

"linguistic philosophy died in the 50s dude"
Thinking about words is bad?
Saying words don't affect thought is insane.
A little study of foreign language and culture will show that. The fact that ideas don't exist in another cultures where words for it don't exist. Human interaction at the least is hugely affected by how language works.

Philosophy is not something that should be treated like hula hoops. Thinking shouldn't go out of style.

― Windy G Moisture, Saturday, 10 March 2007 05:25 (eighteen years ago)

"Are you sure it's autism you have and not tourette's?"
What's the world look like through a glass bellybutton?

― Windy G Moisture, Saturday, 10 March 2007 05:26 (eighteen years ago)

Arggh Libcrypt I think we basically agree here about language, but you're attributing totally ridiculous motives to people. When people are grammar Nazis on this board, they're not making claims about their divine prescriptive authority, they're either just having fun correcting people or suggesting rules they think are valuable ones. I mean, sorry if you've met some rigid weirdos in your time, but when normal people make corrections that's all they're doing, and it's silly to pretend much else.

P.S. the best source of linguistic authority these days -- the kind people are looking for when they open usage books -- is the same best source for authority for most information: some sense of expertise and good judgment. E.g., you trust that the dictionary can tell you the best way to spell something because they have expert panels and research and hopefully some reputation for being sensible in the past, and you trust that they've thought about it for a lot longer than you personally care to.

― nabisco, Saturday, 10 March 2007 05:34 (eighteen years ago)

ok then, to be verbose, the "linguistic turn" of philosophy is dead

using wittgenstein to attack descriptivism is still nutty

― abanana, Saturday, 10 March 2007 05:40 (eighteen years ago)

nabisco: A minor example in support of my arguments is the "New Fowler's" fiasco. I won't say that the example proves the point, but this bit of a review from Amazon really demonstrates the sentiment in question:

The New Fowler's Modern English Usage, the first revision in more than 30 years, has not arrived without controversy. Some language (and Fowler) purists complain that the book is too liberal at times, noting that usage is common as opposed to correct.

"Common as opposed to correct". That's sums up pretty much every point I was chasing in a far tidier bundle.

― libcrypt, Saturday, 10 March 2007 05:44 (eighteen years ago)

Be specific of what you're trying to say.
Why is an idea on thought supposed to be ignored?
Why is thinking aobut how language affects thought bad?

He was using arguments that could have been lifted from the first 20 pages of 'Investigations.'
THAT'S why I mentioned it.

― Windy G Moisture, Saturday, 10 March 2007 05:48 (eighteen years ago)

why are you taking all this so personally windy? as i think somebody pointed out in the thread earlier, as long as you can communicate effectively then this kind of stuff isn't really something to be frothing at the mouth over?

please don't take that to mean that i know nothing of english by the way, as you appear to have taken the liberty of assuming with anyone else disagreeing with your good self..

also, manners appear to be dropping in nu-ilx. that's disappointing.

― darraghmac, Saturday, 10 March 2007 20:53 (eighteen years ago)

why are you taking all this so personally windy?

He really IS autistic. That's not a joke.

― libcrypt, Saturday, 10 March 2007 21:41 (eighteen years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.