Semantics (A rant)

[Salsero]

Dictionary.com has the following usage note:

• Usage Note: Throughout most of its history in English myriad was used as a noun, as in a myriad of men. In the 19th century it began to be used in poetry as an adjective, as in myriad men. Both usages in English are acceptable, as in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Myriad myriads of lives." This poetic, adjectival use became so well entrenched generally that many people came to consider it as the only correct use. In fact, both uses in English are parallel with those of the original ancient Greek. The Greek word mūrias, from which myriad derives, could be used as either a noun or an adjective, but the noun mūrias was used in general prose and in mathematics while the adjective mūrias was used only in poetry.

There must be strong feelings both ways about this one, an issue I don't remember ever hearing about before you brought it to my attention, Artemis.

[Artemis]

Dictionary.com has the following usage note:

• Usage Note: Throughout most of its history in English myriad was used as a noun, as in a myriad of men. In the 19th century it began to be used in poetry as an adjective, as in myriad men. Both usages in English are acceptable, as in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Myriad myriads of lives." This poetic, adjectival use became so well entrenched generally that many people came to consider it as the only correct use. In fact, both uses in English are parallel with those of the original ancient Greek. The Greek word mūrias, from which myriad derives, could be used as either a noun or an adjective, but the noun mūrias was used in general prose and in mathematics while the adjective mūrias was used only in poetry.

There must be strong feelings both ways about this one, an issue I don't remember ever hearing about before you brought it to my attention, Artemis.

Yes, it's a bitter battle between the pro-nouns and the pro-adjectives. The line under Teaware and Accessories "A myriad of teaware & accessories can be as much of a passion as tea itself," makes me want to tear my hair out.

[scruffmcgruff]

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

[Victoria]

This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.

[ABx]

I'm used to tech forums, so I'm just happy as a clam with the fact that I rarely have to expend any energy interpreting what people are trying to say on this forum

Seriously, I actually got excited when I saw people using "piqued" instead of "peaked" (my interest) here. I've had people "correct" me on that (saying "peaked") in tech forums <sigh>

That became one small pet peeve, but for the most part I am happy as people make a good faith effort to use full words, capitalize properly, punctuate, and so on.

[scruffmcgruff]

Oh man, just remembered another really annoying one. Confusing "Loose" and "Lose." A typo I can forgive, but if someone makes the same mistake multiple times in the same post...

[Salsero]

Then there is definately vs definitely in the spelling category. I searched and found 328 instances of the misspelling.

As ABx mentions, however, this forum really is very literate, as evidenced by this thread! I don't know how much fun we are at a party, but ...

[geeber1]

My daughter was recently reading 'The Land of Elyon' by Patrick Carman and I was also reading it. After about 20 pages, I began noticing lots of typos, such as isles instead of aisles, rung instead of wrung, etc. It became such a distraction that I couldn't enjoy the book at all! It's not a very good example for a children's book!

I made a list of the typos and was tempted to write to the publisher, but didn't want to be dismissed as a crazy old lady!

[Proinsias]

“Meanings is not important,” said the BFG. “I can’t be right all the time. Quite often I is left instead of right.”

Reading The BFG this evening to my daughter

[chamekke]

Yes, it's a bitter battle between the pro-nouns and the pro-adjectives. The line under Teaware and Accessories "A myriad of teaware & accessories can be as much of a passion as tea itself," makes me want to tear my hair out.

See, why even bother with "myriad" in that sentence when the grammatically appropriate (and equally Greek!) word "plethora" is just begging to be used...

[Salsero]

See, why even bother with "myriad" in that sentence when the grammatically appropriate (and equally Greek!) word "plethora" is just begging to be used...

To me, plethora always suggests an excess, an undesirable abundance, whereas this context seems to suggest that abundance is a good thing.

The problem I have with myriad as cited above is that it seems to require a countable noun in the plural, e.g., a myriad of teacups, not a non-count noun like teaware, just like many and much. You can't say many teaware but you can say much teaware.

Anyone want to go for the thread with the largest percent of italicized words?

[chamekke]

Ooh, you're right about plethora. My bad. That was a shading of meaning that I had completely forgotten.

But as it turns out, I have a plethora of tea utensils rather than merely myriad tea utensils

[Salsero]

I think in Standard Florida Cracker, my teaware might be termed simply, "too damn much" or possibly, "what, are you nuts, boy?"

[cheaton]

Being a southerner who now lives in the midwest there are some midwestern euphamisms that drive me nuts. Like when you are standing in line and the person at the counter says "I can help who's next". That's just a strange way to say "Next in line please!". I'll never get used to Soda being called "Pop". In Atlanta everything is coke even if its pepsi. Here in Cleveland all of the KFC franchises used to be owned by a company called 'Kenny Kings'. Alot of Clevelanders still call KFC 'Kenny Kings', it drives me nuts. THey also call vacuuming "sweeping". Odd people, nice, but odd.

[scruffmcgruff]

Well I think calling all soda "coke" is just as bad as "pop." I've lived in the South for a few years (coming from the West coast, not that Northern Californians have perfect English) so I can assure you there are Southern phrases that are a little wonky too. For example, while I have no problem with "y'all," "all y'all" is so obviously redundant! The worst is "might could" and all it's variations. I'll never understand that one, haha.