|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
Here comes another pet peeve: hyperurbanization, as my linguistics professor Lee Pedersen* called it. Such is committed by otherwise literate folks who don't fully understand subject-verb agreement and the role of the nominative case, as two examples.
"She's one of those women who likes football."
or
"Neither of the passengers were seriously hurt."
and
"The gift is for you and I."
More examples? comments?
~~~
*he who handled the southern end of Cassidy's Dictionary of American Regional English project and he who wrote the regional dialect article for the AHD
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear AS: Since the rustics also make these errors, I wonder why your prof called it "hyperurbanization."
I agree with your "over-correction". I have had the impression that quite a few people who have been corrected for using the accusative incorrectly, thereafter use only the nominative.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
"She's one of those women who likes football."
"Those women who like football" all by its lonesome sounds OK to me but as quick as you tack that independent clause on there the subject power of "She" rolls over the subject power of "women" and forces the verb "like" into submission, dragging it back, kicking and screaming, into the singular. The verb power of "'s" is not enough to satisfy the internal grammar checker; the singularity of "She" must be appeased.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Actually, it's the word "one" that causes the verb to be likes, not like. As in, "one who likes football".
The only example I can think of right now is tsuwm's (I think) pet peeve, and I do it myself even though I don't like it: saying "they xyz", when you've just had a singular subject: "Someone told me something, and I forgot what they said."
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
Faldage and Jackie, The problem here is that she is a member of a group of women, all of whom like football. She's not alone among those women in liking football. I wish I still remembered how to diagram a sentence. While the singular may be strictly correct (and I'm not convinced of that) the plural makes more sense, both in terms of logic and of proximity. Here's what the AHD of English Usage has to say on a very closely related construction: agreement by proximity.
Certain grammatical constructions provide further complications. Sometimes the noun that is adjacent to the verb can exert more influence than the noun that is the grammatical subject. Selecting a verb in a sentence like A variety of styles has been/have been in vogue for the last year can be tricky. The traditional rules require has been, but the plural sense of the noun phrase presses for have been. While 59 percent of the Usage Panel insists on the singular verb in this sentence, 22 percent actually prefer the plural verb and another 19 percent say that either has or have is acceptable, meaning that 41 percent find the plural verb with a singular grammatical subject to be acceptable.http://www.bartleby.com/64/C001/060.html#SUBJECTANDV1
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
Dr Bill, Good question. I can't come up with an answer. Post-edit: After further contemplation, and with the help of a PM from a poster who shall remain nameless (or name-full  ), I think what Pedersen meant by his term stems from "urbane," not "urban." In other words, an attempt to sound sophisticated.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
I think the prof. may have been trying to categorize a certain type of hypercorrection, as the linguists have it, which he associated with "the process of investing with an urban character".
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605 |
faldage says, "She's one of those women who likes football." the subject power of "She" ... forces the verb "like" into submission, dragging it back, kicking and screaming, into the singular. The singularity of "She" must be appeased.Though Jackie's response is quite correct, faldage's perspective is fully understandable with such a very singular "She" in his life. Faldage, at first one might think that you focus on "she" due to your personal position, your/you're ASpecked. But no, with such a fine tomato, no one would believe ASpic-on you! 
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
You for ye or, worse, for thou or thee.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146 |
She's one of those women who likes football. She's one of those women who like football. It's sad, but I think we all do it from time to time. Well, I do, anyway, unless I have time to go back and proofread everything. I must say, I kind of just accept this kind of slip these days, although since I, too, have pet grammatical peeves, I sympathise with the ASp! 
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
|
|
|
|
Forums16
Topics13,914
Posts229,817
Members9,187
| |
Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
|
|
|
0 members (),
483
guests, and
2
robots. |
|
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
|
