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Re: They guessed the acronym.

Whereas, stateside the expression seems to be "I could care less", which to me would imply "I actually care about that to some degree, as it is possible for me to care less than I do".
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Actually, the Yank term is "as if I could care less" but was shortened by the lazy to "I could care less" and I have heard it that way myself. Agreed that it sounds funny and counter-intuitive, but that's language for you! After all, tolerant and intolerant are opposites, but flammable and inflammable are the same thing.
 
Re: They guessed the acronym.

Actually, the Yank term is "as if I could care less"
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The original was, of course, "I couldn't care less". The second form (as noted above), today's "I could care less." I have never heard a single American use the form you've given above. That sounds like someone who is really stoned trying to say one or the other of the common versions, but it was certainly never itself a frequently used version in the U.S. Say what you like about us Yanks, we're not that f***king confused. :)

Regards,

Joe
 
Re: They guessed the acronym.

The original was, of course, "I couldn't care less". The second form (as noted above), today's "I could care less." I have never heard a single American use the form you've given above. That sounds like someone who is really stoned trying to say one or the other of the common versions, but it was certainly never itself a frequently used version in the U.S. Say what you like about us Yanks, we're not that f***king confused. :)

Regards,

Joe
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Just do a google search on the phrase "as if I could care less" and you will find some 66 entries. About a third of them are discussions of the usage of "could/couldn't care less" and the rest are Americans actually using the phrase "as if I could care less."

So once you do this, you will never again be able to say that you have "never heard a single American use the form..." unless you want to get REAL picky and argue that reading isn't "hearing!" :LOL: I have heard (and used) that usage many times, but it may be a Midwestern thing.

Alt-usage-english addresses this issue in some depth (along with "head over heels" which means, of course, "heels over head" as head over heels is the normal way of things! :p).

ElScorcho: I understand what you mean, but we have to occupy our time somehow until JMS resolves the Great Mystery.
 
Re: They guessed the acronym.

When it is spoken I hear the perfectly correct contraction "should've" or "could've" or "would've".
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Or more precisely, you can't tell if you're hearing the correct or incorrect version, because they sound the same. You can't tell what the other person thinks the words are.

OTOH I've met people who speak so slowly that you can clearly hear that they're saying "could ... of" so that they are clearly saying two words rather than one contraction. The fact is, they don't know what they're saying. You see this all the time when people write out phrases they've heard but never saw spelled out, and which they don't really understand. Or when they use a word or phrase they've heard in the wrong context. Or they try to apply word-formation rules without understanding them - which is where you get words like "irregardless" (another of my pet peeves) and why "flammable" had to be invented to prevent the ignorant from setting themselves on fire. ("Inflammable" means that something is liable to become "inflamed". But "invulnerable" means that something is not vulnerable. This led people to think that items marked "inflammable" could not catch fire - at least long enough to find out otherwise the hard way. "Flammable" was coined as a result, although the older form still lingers. "Irregardless" comes from people used to "privative" (negating) prefixes in words like "irrelevant" failing to notice the privative suffix that a compound word like "regardless" already had.)

:)

Regards,

Joe
 
Re: They guessed the acronym.

You see this all the time when people write out phrases they've heard but never saw spelled out...
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I was about 9 when I discovered there was no such word as 'ordepends'. I'd heard so many people answer questions with the words, "Well, it ordepends..." that it seemed a very sensible word to me :D

It's probably a factor of the accent in the area where I grew up that 'or' and 'all' sound so similar :LOL:
 
Re: They guessed the acronym.

Or they try to apply word-formation rules without understanding them - which is where you get words like "irregardless" (another of my pet peeves)
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Of course,you shouldn't really let that get to you, as it's happened many times in the history of English.

Following the Norman conquest, the contact with French introduced many new loan words, as new lexical items. It also brought morphological change. For example the French suffix -able. This was found in the borrowed words such as agreeable, damnable etc, and was combined with native roots to form words such as understandable, unbreakable etc.

Similarily, -ry as found in peasantry, hearldry etc was used with native roots to form yeomandry, husbandry.

And -ess as a diminutive suffix, as in Princess, was used with native roots to form godess, shepherdess etc.

Technically, these were wrong at the time, but are now accepted as productive affixes in English.

:devil:

Sorry for the tangent...I had an exam on this about 4 weeks ago! :D

VB
 
Re: They guessed the acronym.

Technically, these were wrong at the time, but are now accepted as productive affixes in English.
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But they weren't wrong. They were new, which is not the same thing. Adding "ess" to "god" to form the diminuative/feminine "godess" doesn't contradict the original meaning the way the way adding "ir" ("not" or "without") to "regardless". In regardless the existing word "regard" has already been modified by the suffix "less" to mean "without regard". Adding the prefix "ir" to "regardless" gives you a word that means "without a lack of regard" - that is, "regard". It is a single word double-negative that negates itself, and thus simply an ignorant use of language, not a novel and creative one as the examples you gave are.

(One of the glories of English is its ability to genuinely absorb new words, and the rich volcabulary our Ancestral Island's habit of being invaded, conquered and occupied every couple of hundred years - until recently - has given us. :) Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Picts, Vikings, Normans - speaking a form for French that was itself influenced by their own Viking ancestors - it really is a wonderful hodge-podge and gives us so many options for saying the same (or nearly the same) thing. There are subtlties and ambiguities built into English that aren't possible in some other languges. :)

Regards,

Joe
 
Re: They guessed the acronym.

And JoeD.'s "of" complaint is also a pet peeve of mine. It only comes up in written communication, though. When it is spoken I hear the perfectly correct contraction "should've" or "could've" or "would've". It irritates me that so much of what you see written in places like message boards implies that people don't actually know what they themselves are saying when they speak.
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Yes, this one drives me quite crazy, as well. I know that "should've," "would've" and "could've" do indeed sound like "should of," "would of" and "could of," but all one has to do is _think_ about what one is saying. The latter phrases mean absolutely nothing. Further, if one only looked at the contractions themselves, there's a tremendous clue there that points to "have": the "'ve," of course.

Sometimes I don't know what is happening to a basic English education in this country anymore.

Aisling
 
Re: They guessed the acronym.

[Adding the prefix "ir" to "regardless" gives you a word that means "without a lack of regard" - that is, "regard". It is a single word double-negative that negates itself, and thus simply an ignorant use of language, not a novel and creative one as the examples you gave are.
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Ah, but that's another example of the mutability of the laws of english morphology, phonology and syntax. There was no precedent for the "double negative" or the "split infinitive" in English. These were rules of Latin which, when English was being standardised in the 16th / 17th C, various scholarly types, liked. So when writing their prescriptive Grammars, they included these rules and the ignorant masses (our ancestors) adapated their speech patterns, for the most part, to these new prescriptive rules.

I used to feel as strongly as you do about people using language incorrectly, but studying English language (and it's use, history and variations around the world) has shown me that one shouldn't judge, merely study and observe.

An example of this is the Scots language (or dialect, depending on your stance...). In Scotland, Scots, or the broad dialect of Scots English (again, depending on your take on the "language/dialect position), has a lower percieved status than SSE (Scottish Standard English); but this is a socially constructed opinion; there is no reason for the one language to be regarded with any less prestige than the other.

Indeed, because Scots and English are so similar, it's easy to view someone using Scots as using "bad English"; many people do. In fact, I used to! My old boss used to say "youse" as a plural to you. (e.g. "Youse lot come over here!")

And I, as the literate, educated, and slightly arrogant employee ( :cool: ) would correct him mercilessly. Imagine my surprise to discover that this was a trait of Middle English which was dropped over the years due to the laziness of general english speakers, but which was still extant in Scots.

Doh!

Indeed, many of the characteristics of Scots were once present in English, and have remained here as it is a more conservative language / dialect. Jings, crivvens and help ma boab! Hoots mon! And all that. :)

Any living language, i.e. one that is in use, is always changing. Today's counter intuitive idiot-slang (and I'm not arguing with you that most of these are both stupid and counter-intuitive) will become tomorrow's accepted use of the language. :)

VB.
 
Re: They guessed the acronym.

I've been following the new digression of this thread, and just want to add a few comments, some about preceding posts.

First, I agree with you that a living language is changing constantly, and today's idiot slang is often tomorrow's accepted usage. As much as I might dislike some aspects of that, I have to admit that it is better that languages which don't adopt new words as readily, often use one word to for various, different meanings, or use lots of compound words for new terms. My current pet peeve seems well on the way to becoming the universally accepted usage, and that is the misuse of reference as a verb. When used as a verb, it means to provide with references, not to refer to, allude to, or to cite, as most seem to use it now. 'Butt naked' instead of 'buck naked' is another pet peeve, but at least it does make some sense.

I have lived in the midwest most of my life, and don't believe I have ever heard anyone say "as if I could care less." I don't like the misuseage "I could care less" either, but I don't buy that this usage was started by arrogant hippies. :rolleyes:

The "champing at the bit" was discussed some months back, by GKE and myself among others. The odd thing with that is that champing actually means chomping! Weird.

The mention of double negatives reminds me of one of my favorite language jokes. I'll tell it (but omit the several others I've been reminded of as well):
The professor said to his class "There are languages, such as English, where a double negative is a positive, and there are languages, such as Russian, where a double negative is a negative. But, there are no languages where a double positive is a negative." A voice from the back of the room said: "Yeah, right." :p
 
Countdown!

Ha, ha! I caught you! I'll teach you for leaving me on the rest stop with my pants down, and I'll taunt you for taking that wrong turn down the language road!
<Nelson>HA! HA!</Nelson>
It's a long time since this thread was about B5. :cool:
(Although I am interested in language.)
How about we guess how long it is untill the announcement? I'm daring a bold guess of 6 hours. :)
 
Re: They guessed the acronym.

I'll tell it (but omit the several others I've been reminded of as well):
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Well I won't. :)

A couple encounter Noah Webster, the great lexicographer, on a train. Wanting to show off to his wife, the man says, "Mr. Webster, do you realize that 'sugar' is the only word in the English language where the combination 's-u' is pronounced as 'shu'?"

Webster thinks about this for a moment than says, "Are you sure?"

Poor Noah:

One day Mrs. Webster comes home early from shopping and finds her husband in bed with the maid. "Noah!" she cries, "I am surprised!"

"No, my dear," comes the answer. "I am surprised, you are merely astonished."

Of course, that one depends on a distinction that has been lost to time.

Yes, English is a living langauge and yes dictionaries should be descriptive rather than prescriptive. (An argument I made just this morning in a newsgroup about another subject entirely. :)) But that means that "rules" (or rather "usage) and volcabularly can change over time based on what becomes generally accepted. Not that there are no "rules" or generally recognized volcabulary (and thus word meanings) at a given time. Assuming the intent is to communicate there are "right" and "wrong" ways to use words, and there are meanings independent of words. As English is commonly understood "I am not not going to tell you" is a double-negative and would be whether or not Latin and Greek grammar had ever been overlaid on the language. That is, the statement would be either incomprehensible or taken to mean "I will tell you" by any intelligent English-speaker even if the term "double-negative" had never been invented. Similarly if I decide that the word "pfliggle" means automobile and start using it that way, people would be well within their rights to correct me. Which is a little different from correcting someone who uses a word like "youse" as a plural of "you" - because that is actually a useful and readily understood word, whether a neolgism created by the speaker or a revival of an earlier form. (Especially since, at least in Brooklyn, "youse" is almost always paired with "guys".) As someone pointed out, most of the grammatical "mistakes" that children make involve applying rules that do in fact exist in our language to the rare "left-over" words and forms that are today's exceptions to the rules. English is progressively becoming more internally consistent and simpler in some respects over time.

(But I still deplore the habit of "verbing" perfectly good nouns. There's a terrific Calvin and Hobbes Sunday strip on the subject, I'll have to try to find it. :))

Regards,

Joe
 
Re: They guessed the acronym.

Like the jokes. :)

As English is commonly understood "I am not not going to tell you" is a double-negative and would be whether or not Latin and Greek grammar had ever been overlaid on the language. That is, the statement would be either incomprehensible or taken to mean "I will tell you" by any intelligent English-speaker even if the term "double-negative" had never been invented.
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Ah, but the key point is "as english is connonly uderstood"...it is only understood to mean that due to the conventions accepted in the history of its development. In some languages (for example Russian, I think) a double negative is still a negative. But I take your point and agree with it for the most part. :)

I just find the whole thing; the arbitrary nature of the linguistic sign, to be fascinating. :D

Oh, and I know the Calvin and Hobbes sketch you mean: my part time job is in a contact centre for an on online bank (think "The Office" and you're half way there!) and verbing happens left right and centre...my top peeves in the work environment:

"Actioning"
"Touching Base"
"Linking in"
"Providing support" (As a euphemism for "doing the work of...")

to name but a few!!!

:mad:

VB

VB.
 
Re: They guessed the acronym.

Do studios give out press releases on a Friday?
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Actually, that's just when Warner Bros. broke the news about Angel's cancellation: this past Friday the 13th.

Aisling
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But that is a *completely* different case.

The cancellation of a show that they know has a very loyal following (the kind that writes lots of letters of complaint) is something that a network would prefer to be played down, get as little ink over as diffused a period as possible. Hence, puttng a weekend between the announcement and the next possible time when many media outlets could cover it.

When they are announcing a new show or the commissioning of a movie or mini-series then exactly the opposite applies. They want to make the biggest publicity splash possible. That means that are not likely to make the announcement on a Friday when its impact will be diffused.
 
Re: They guessed the acronym.

Dead on Pillowrock. There's a saying in the news biz, "If you want to make sure NO ONE hears about something...release it to the press on Friday."

No the WB announcement will come in the beginning of a week...whatever week that will be. They'll choose that one carefully so as to make the biggest splash.

CE
 
Re: They guessed the acronym.

Ah, but the key point is "as english is connonly uderstood"...it is only understood to mean that due to the conventions accepted in the history of its development. In some languages (for example Russian, I think) a double negative is still a negative.
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Maybe it is just my background in mathematics and symbolic logic coming to the fore, but .....

It just makes sense to me that negating something actually makes the final statement mean something different than the original statement without that negation ..... even in cases where there is another negation within the original statement.

If you take a statement A and negate it, so that you have:

not {A)

Then you negate *that*, to yield:

not ( not ( A ) )

The second negation is not meaningless.

not ( not ( A ) ) does not equal not {A) and more than ((-1) * (-1) * 6) equals ((-1) * 6).


The fact that languages exist where the convention defies this premise of basic logic does not change the fact that using a double negative to mean the same thing as a single negative irritates me (since I still view the idea as completely illogical). It also won't deter me from doing what little I can to maintain some semblance of logic in the usage of English.


EDIT: I just looked back at this and realized that it came out sounding a bit more strident than I intended. That doesn't mean that I didn't mean any of it. Just that it is bit more serious-sounding than I would actually intend.
 
Re: They guessed the acronym.

"flammable" had to be invented to prevent the ignorant from setting themselves on fire. ("Inflammable" means that something is liable to become "inflamed".
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Wasn't this one the subject of a bit in Gallagher's stand-up act for a while?

"Flammable, inflammable, noninflammable: Doesn't it seem like two words ought to be able to cover that concept. Either something flams or it doesn't!"
 
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