h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>> jwf, can you be unaware that Nova Scotia means "New Scotland"...<<

Well I usually try to be as unaware as possible, but I will try harder if it means that much to you. It'll be difficult. Everywhere I go I will see the province's motto 'Ciad Mille Failte' the Gaelic meaning '100,000 Welcomes'. [Now that there almost a million of us, some revisionist is sure to propose an update.]

The original name for the Maritime Provinces of Canada was 'Acadia'
which is the French evquivalent name for an idealised promised land.

When (1625) King Charles (I) chartered off the part that is now Nova Scotia (obviously before someone chartered off his head), he gave it the Latin name for New Scotland and hoped someone would be brave enough to go claim it from the Fremnch. For a long time it was better known as Caledonia, the Scot's version of heaven on earth. [We even have our own Royally approved tartan.]
http://www.gov.ns.ca/playground/Tartan.asp

Survivors of the Acadian French begrudgingly call it Nouvelle Ecosse. And I have always wanted to start a racing team called Ecurie Nouvelle Ecosse in honour of the stirling moss that grows on the rocks here. Blue cars with white numbers racing a figure 8 course, the intersection clearly a Cross of St Andrew.
http://www.electricscotland.com/lifestyle/ecurie_ecosse.htm


~jwf~

>> I think you're on your own; Plaguesville was here. <<

Not so! He are quite correctly. And even if modern usage are obviously amending and bending the old rules I still lives in hope that when I deliberately uses the wrong, that folks'll recognise that I are trying to be humourous and is not as stupid as I sounds.

The thought that for four years my funny dialects may has been taken at face value are quite distressing.

~jwf~

"racing a figure 8 course"

Would that have a bridge or traffic light control?

the latter of course, surely you have heard of the traffic light grand prix?

And ~jwf~, the problem with taking what you say at facfe value is that the Santa Claus disguise keeps getting in the way!

Oh, and if the US got New England, Canada got Nova Scotia (which sounds more like an instruction to avoid the place in Spanish to me ) so who got New Eire?

Plaguesville was here- while Kilroy wuz elsewhere.
So the trees tell me ,uncomfirmed by the walls as acording to Kilroy
they only ears,as confirmed by Kilroys namesake's disapeareance from BBC.
With whom I would enquire as to the rules regarding the legal and grammaticle definition of the article ,refering to the peculiarities
of the definitive interputation as to the singularities, plural refered to in the indefinate article, whereupon they may also for reasons of legality, as a true interputive ,inference's to be singuler on inflection, or of the female persausion showing all the reconized traits of the male not to be confused with his and heirs
also to be advised as to the quirks of the bakers dozen wheras one dozen would in law signify twelve in a bakery it is in fact thirteen.

I don't know which of Plaguesville's three categories I fit into, but I would agree with him that there is **grammatically speaking** NO DIFFERENCE between:

- a pack of cards
- a number of initiatives
- a plague of locusts
- a book of rules
- a herd of donkeys
- an unruly, seething crowd of scarf-waving, chanting stamp-collectors.

(Funnily enough, while I was thinking up some examples on my bike on the way to work this morning, one of the examples I was going to list was "a bag of marbles")

All the above are single units. And - grammatically speaking - to be treated as such (with the third person singular conjugation).

It took me a while to have that drummed into my head when in the third form, and I'm not going to forget it quickly. And that was in 1968 - for vestboy (?) or whoever thought that the language had changed.

The example my English teacher used to trick us in a sentence analysis was "He showed them his collection of owls". Whether the collection was "large" or "of owls" is only a qualification of the collection itself.

Subject: He
Verb: to show
Indirect object: them
Direct object: his collection (descriptor: of owls)

However: If you say "a large number of people were affected by the epidemic" I would not start a pedantic argument. It sounds right, and one day it may well be right, and I probably say it myself. But I don't consider it correct grammar and I pity the poor chappie who one day will have to sit down and write the new rule.

"A million people ...." is a plural. A million = one million. A dozen = 12. i.e. a specific number. It is not "A million of people" or "a dozen of people". (I hope that doesn't classify me as a maths geek) Perhaps Recumbentman was just being deliberately provocative on that one. Grammatically "A million people were watching the broadcast" is identical to "three ducks were crossing the road".



As for "was" and "were" being the past tense. Don't forget that "were" is also the subjunctive. However, it seems that many dialects use "I were" and "They was" in the UK.


So - I think I've managed to agree with Plaguesville, Recumbentman AND Gnomon and answered Ictoan's question a bit, too.

I definitely support Gnomon's view of the living and changing language, but, as I said above, I do pity anyone who tries to explain exactly why we say grammatically illogical things, if, by force of general usage, they become accepted. Still, lots of inexplicable things have happened already over the centuries - look at spelling; and some meanings have changed completely from the Latin or Greek origins.

As these divergences from the original were presumably the result of illiteracy which was more prevalent in earlier centuries, we can hardly complain that people are changing the language simply because they are ignorant of some petty rules that many experts have already proved to be entirely fabricated, or founded on fallacies.

>> the Santa Claus disguise <<

A necessary evil. It assures that even when my content is misconstrued my intentions can never be doubted.


~jwf~

"singular conjugation"
Oooh, eck, there they go conjugating again

You mention
"a large number of people were affected by the epidemic"

why not use
"a large number of people have been affected by the epidemic"
Or does that use a completely different set of rules?

To be taken in a grammatical sense only:

"The masculine embraces the feminine."

To get involved in the whole him/his/her/hir stuff merely complicates things, as if you could imagine such a possibility.

I supose it is not worth teaseing any one about the tea ,discussion wether its is descibed in the plural with the teas as with the cups being singuler container,with tea blended from several varieties ,refered to by the singuler, but grammaticly plural.by definition

Hmmmff hmnff hummmff

OK which is right:

Yolk of eggs is white

or

Yolk of eggs are white

?

Nephew Who counting in
"It is about one kind of yolk
There are more egss involved
The property is about the single type of yolk

What is a yolk?"

yolk of eggs

I would say as 'eggs' is plural, you are talking about more than one yolk, so strictly speaking 'are' not 'is'. However, it sounds a clumsy sentence, so I would put it another way anyway.


Some eggs have double yolks.

Neither.

Egg yolk is yellow...

It is the white of the egg that is, er, white

Or even

Some eggs have A double yolk?

Well both are wrong some yolks may be white predomimatly .
But they are yellow,what is called the white of the egg often separated from the yolk for merangues, does not appear as white untill cooked ,(chikens)
other eggs such as ducks the white may be green,,not forgetting ostridge ,plover,ptamigan,and the humble sturgeon, (black yolk ?)

had it not taken me one minute per line a triple post would have been achieved(doubledoubleyolkjoke)

Never mind, only yolking. Kelli gets the prize.