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Joined: Aug 2005
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290 |
I have been looking into the origins of the not ending sentences with prepositions, not splitting infinitives, and the that-which/restrictive-nonrestrictive rules, and I was wondering. What do you all consider the top ten prescriptivist rules in English. You do not have to agree or disagree with them, which are the one you run across the most in the wild?
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Can I even think of ten? Your three top me out.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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dalehileman
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,027 |
not ending sentences with prepositions -
"What are you thinking of?" "What are you aiming for?" Are these wrong?
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,027 |
As referenced by you link, tautology can be used as a rhetorical device - certainly not false.
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Joined: Dec 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
not ending sentences with prepositions -
"What are you thinking of?" "What are you aiming for?" Are these wrong? There are those who would say that they are wrong and would expect you to say "Of what are you thinking?" "For what are you aiming?"
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Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290 |
"What are you thinking of?" "What are you aiming for?" Are these wrong?
Not as far as I and most others who speak and write English are concerned, but starting with Dryden, there has been a vocal minority who assert without evidence that those sentences are solecisms. (NB, I am not collecting these wrongheaded rulelets for some prescriptivist nosegay, I just want to catalog the ones still extant.)
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Joined: Apr 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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here are a couple of nominees:
4) The notion that none must have a singular verb
5) A sentence may not begin with And (or But?)
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 1,773 |
ws, tautology might be the wrong word. I am thinking of all unnecessary words, phrases, elucidations, etc. Circumlocutions too. Stuff like that
dalehileman
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Different from/than/to, not to mention nor.
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