Steve Are not Liking How the English am Ruining Them’s Language
February 17th, 2009Explain Yourselves
While I’m dealing with pet peeves, can someone tell me when the English decided to rewrite the rules of subject/verb agreement?
I just read a headline I cannot understand. It says “England refuse to force follow on as Windies are bowled out.” WHAT? WHAT? “Bowled out?” “Windies”? Am I hallucinating?
Must be a cricket story. I refuse to click. Oops, I mean “Steve refuse to click.”
Anyway, it’s an example of what I’m complaining about. “England” is a singular noun, and the writer treats it like a plural noun.
This ungrammatical BS is a new thing. It has to be. The Bible mentions a lot of nations, and it was written in England, and it doesn’t say things like “Israel also WERE had in abomination with the Philistines.” Look for yourself. Here’s another one: “Egypt WAS glad when they departed: for the fear of them fell upon them.”
Stop it, English people. Or else pretentious Americans who say “cheers” instead of “bye” and write “colour” instead of “color” will start doing it, too.
February 17th, 2009 at 6:45 PM
i R pretentious? no. you is be bad dishonourable man.
February 17th, 2009 at 6:50 PM
Amen amen amen! “The group go to the movies.” “The team move to the other side of town.” It sounds stupid. It IS stupidity.
Thank you for the Christian POV. I’ve run backwards from (dare I say it??) Little Green Footballs for its suddenly very anti-Christian posts.
February 17th, 2009 at 7:07 PM
We are going to see increasing division between Christian conservatives and non-Christian conservatives. They are terrified by the pounding the GOP has taken, and they’re convinced a lot of it is our fault. They think they have to sell out on every possible issue in order to regain the upper hand. We believe we have to go in the other direction, working harder to gain God’s favor. It’s a recipe for schism.
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I wonder how long it will be before conservatives start envying the power of leftist anti-Semitism and begin throwing Israel and the Jews under the bus to the big tent. I think it will happen.
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Why shouldn’t it happen? It’s the other side of the same coin. “Backing an unpopular group seems to have a political cost, so scrape them off.” Does it sound like I’m talking about Israel or the Christian right? Impossible to tell; it applies to both. The same spirit that drives persecution of Jews drives persecution of Christians, so it makes sense that both groups are ostracised, and that the rationales are identical.
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I’m only conservative because at the moment, conservatism is closer to God’s way than leftism. When conservatism walks away from God, it walks away from me, too. If it means party disunity and Democrat control, so be it. I am not afraid of what will happen to me if the US falls to pieces. Individuals and families can be blessed within the framework of a cursed nation.
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“As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Let the New Age secular Republicans put that in their pipes and smoke it a while.
February 17th, 2009 at 7:16 PM
I do say “cheers”, but only with my British friends, and only from habit (I lived there for three years). I also find myself typing “favourite” on occassion before I correct it…guess I’m pretentious now 😉
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My friends typically found such corruption of “the Queen’s English” deplorable, but I guess it depends on what segment of British Culture (or lack thereof) that we’re talking about.
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This wasn’t Reuters was it? They’re know for employing caption writers who are barely literate…
February 17th, 2009 at 7:18 PM
Okay…irony bites:
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“They’re know for employing caption writers who are barely literate…”
I was SURE I typed that ‘n’, darn it! Can you tell I really, really miss the “Preview” option?
February 17th, 2009 at 8:46 PM
““As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Let the New Age secular Republicans put that in their pipes and smoke it a while.”
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COULD. NOT. AGREE. MORE.
February 17th, 2009 at 8:51 PM
That headline am from Bizarro England!
February 17th, 2009 at 10:37 PM
Clearly it was written by someone who had an undue faith in his word processor’s editor. I was going to say it was probably a Scot, but best not to go there.
February 17th, 2009 at 11:27 PM
Don’t be so tough on the Brits. They got the multi-culti’s in control, political correctness raised to an art form, and the barbarian campfires of Sharia law flickering on the horizon. Remember, we used to (before the Civil War) refer to the “United States” in the plural as well. The Brit custom of referring to teams, governments, and groups in the plural has a long tradition. BTW, as a fallen-away, secular Republican, I welcome the religious right. I think that religious Republicans will be the key to preserving our culture and society.
February 18th, 2009 at 7:29 AM
The Brits treat collective nouns differently than we do. To them, a collective noun refers to a group and, thus, takes plural verbs and modifiers..As for Windies, I have no clue.
February 18th, 2009 at 7:59 AM
You knew I would bite again. While I spell in American, I do follow the British English grammar when it comes to collectives so “Man Utd are playing tonight” — the explanation is that it is a group. I could argue either way though being that a team is a collective singular.
It is cricket. Windies are the West Indies. The follow-on is…tell you what…you will never understand cricket so I’ll not even try.
Anyway, one of Texas’ finest, Alan Stanford, appears to have put pay to any form of top-level cricket in the Windies ever again after having been indicted for yet another massive fraud.
February 18th, 2009 at 9:22 AM
Steve – your comment mirrors my own thoughts. I will follow Christ first and be political however/if it serves Him best. The bus is coming soon, along with the consequences when the US abandons Israel.
Thank you again.
February 18th, 2009 at 10:53 AM
“The same spirit that drives persecution of Jews drives persecution of Christians” is codified in Islamic (and secularist) dogma as “First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people.”
An American Charles Martel or two to muster the resolve an opposition to the axis of sharia/secularism would be nice. Abdul Rahman and tenured humanities faculty are not going to be converted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Rahman_Al_Ghafiqi
February 18th, 2009 at 11:02 AM
Even the Dalai Lama (which rhymes with Obama) has given up on some folk: http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20090080421
“The Dalai Lama, a lifelong champion of non-violence on Saturday candidly stated that terrorism cannot be tackled by applying the principle of ahimsa because the minds of terrorists are closed.
“It is difficult to deal with terrorism through non-violence,” the Tibetan spiritual leader said delivering the Madhavrao Scindia Memorial Lecture in Delhi. He termed terrorism as the worst kind of violence which is not carried by a few mad people but by those who are very brilliant and educated.
“They (terrorists) are very brilliant and educated…but a strong ill feeling is bred in them. Their minds are closed,” the Dalai Lama said. He said the only way to tackle terrorism is through prevention. The head of the Tibetan government-in-exile left the audience stunned when he said “I love President George W Bush.”
He went on to add how he and the US President instantly struck a chord in their first meeting unlike politicians who take a while to develop close ties.
“I told him ‘I love you but some of your policies I oppose’,” said the spiritual leader to a loud round of applause from the audience which included Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi, Election Commissioner Navin Chawla and several ministers, diplomats and artistes.
The Dalai Lama said in the aftermath of 9/11 attacks he had asked Bush to spend billions of dollars on education and promotion of non-violence instead of warfare.”
Maimonides, aka the Rambam, said to accept truth no matter its source. I am not a big Dalai Lama fan as I know you aren’t. But this is a nice piece of news to throw in the face of pacifists, especially the Hollywood type.
February 18th, 2009 at 4:11 PM
I don’t think I’m more pretentious than the average, but I do prefer English spellings to the American versions.
As for my worldview, I’m a conservative (once known as liberal before the Left hijacked and perverted the term). Whatever direction the political winds blow has no effect on unalterable truths and unalienable rights.