Lavengro

BBC English: their, there and they’re

(Click to enlarge the image.)

The BBC quotes David Cameron on the result of the Scottish referendum on its live blog (07.50):

"Now the debate has been settled for a generation, or as Alex Salmond has said: 'Perhaps for a lifetime'. So their can be no disputes, no re-runs, we have heard the will of the Scottish people. (My emphasis.)

I long ago gave up using the BBC as a model of English usage for my students but even so this is egregious. The confusion of their, there and they’re is well known – so well known that for that very reason the correct use of these words should be second nature to BBC writers.

For those who may not be sure there is a simple way to remember which is which.

• Their is the possessive of they. The y changes to i as happens in other cases in English: easy/easier or lady/ladies for example.
• There has the same form as its opposite here. This is a coincidence but it is useful to help the memory.
• They’re is the contraction of they are with the apostrophe representing the missing a.

And now there is this (10.38):

Sandra voted No: "I was terribly worried because I feel that united we stand, divided we fall." She adds that she never waivered in her decision.

Sans serif confusion again

I have mentioned a problem with sans serif fonts. I have found it again. The Islamic State (IS in English) is el Estado Islámico in Spanish, which has the abbreviation EI. However, in a sans serif font, as us used by El País for example, this is virtually indistinguishable from the definite article El, which precedes it. The fist image is clipped from Firefox at maximum size.

I saved that image and then increased it to 1200%. There is a very slight visible difference at this magnification but nothing like enough to be seen when read in normal size. So readers have El EI written confusingly as two identical words.Click to enlarge.

 

Preposition problems

The Guardian’s letters column has recently seen a discussion about the standard preposition collocation of going up to and down from London, counter-intuitively to the common idea of up implying northwards on a map. I am not sure if it is still the case but I certainly remember the up train and the down train being the common colloquial names respectively for the trains to and from London. When P G Wodehouse wrote

I turned to Aunt Agatha, whose demeanour was now rather like that of one who, picking daisies on the railway, has just caught the down express in the small of the back.

no reader would have doubted that the train was travelling away from the capital towards the provinces.

But this letter prompted me to think about different prepositions.

Wherever your destination, go there by East Coast or Cross Country train and, bizarrely, you’ll arrive into it.

Michael Ayton, Durham

Firstly, this use of into is something that has surprised and puzzled me on British trains. It goes counter to what I explain to my students: that arrive implies position, when you arrive you acre there and thus it takes prepositions of position not of movement. This is particularly important with Spanish students who collocate the preposition a with llegar. As I say in A Guide to English Language Usage and with almost identical wording in Pearls of the English Language:

arrive

This is a verb of position not of movement. It can only be used with prepositions which describe position; it cannot be used with to: He arrived in the pub before me but He came to the pub by bus and We arrived at the airport an hour and a half before take-off but We travelled to the airport by taxi. The most commonly used prepositions are in and at, though other prepositions of place, e.g. on, over, next to, are possible: The plane arrived over Paris at 12.30.

The prepositions in, on and at can cause great difficulty because other languages do not use them in the same way. A Spanish-speaker reads something en un libro or en la página 38 where as an English-speaker reads the same thing with different prepositions as being in the book but on page 34. The difference is easily explained – though in my experience few students have ever met the simple explanation that in means inside and on means on the surface of. Once this is grasped, everything falls into place. The information is inside the book but the print is on the surface of the page; a coin is on my hand if I hold it open and flat but in my hand if I close my fist around it; a table is in the corner of the room because it is surrounded by the walls but you stand on the corner of the street because you are on the ground; you sit in an armchair but on a dining chair. The surface does not have to be horizontal: we say on the floor, on the wall and on the ceiling but German has auf dem Boden, an der Wand and an der Decke because auf is only for on that is on the top of a horizontal surface.

(Click to enlarge image left of in, on & at from Pearls of the English Language.)

Then there is at, a preposition that no other language seems to require. It isn’t in and it isn’t on so what is it? It is for a relation in space that exists between two things but that is not in or on. If you are waiting for a bus, you stand at the bus stop. The stop is a pole so you can’t be in (inside) it and you can’t be on (on top of) it. You stand at (within a few metres of) it but someone waiting for a taxi could be in the same place but standing near the bus stop because there is no relationship between the purpose and the place.

And of course, when you are at the bus stop you could be sitting on a seat in the shelter.

Bus shelter in Zálezlice, Czech Republic, Wikimedia Commons

Bing strikes again!

Beyond my ken!

Click to enlarge.

Thru and through

Thru is an American spelling of through. It is not standard. The COED says:

thru

• prep., adv., & adj. chiefly US informal spelling of through.

According to Wiktionary:

• Thru is mostly used where the preposition through could be used (e.g. Monday thru Friday); it is less common as an adjective or adverb (I'm thru with the vacuuming). It is less used in formal situations, except in cases where brevity is wanted such as roadway signs or date ranges.
• This spelling is not used in standard British English, though it can be used as an abbreviation – similar to thro' that's still sometimes seen – and is recently becoming noticeable via American-based companies.
  • Through is rarely used in any spelling to indicate ranges in British English; to, till and until are used instead.
• It is often – in both American and British English – used in professional drafting (5/8″ thru hole) to save space and simplify annotation on a drawing for fabrication or construction.

As with other Americanisms it is simpler than the British spelling, e.g. :

GB/US

‑our/‑or (colour/color)

‑re/‑er (theatre/theater)

‑ogue/‑og (dialogue/dialog)

-ae-/-e- (gynaecology/gynecology)

-oe-/-e- (foetus/fetus)

‑ce/‑se (defence/defense)

axe/ax

plough/plow

tyre/tire.

Homophonia

The Independent reports:

Tim Torkildson ... said he was removed from his role as head of social media because his boss believed that his post about homophones might give off the impression that the school promoted homosexuality.

What can one say, except that the blog post was obviously all Greek to the school's owners?

AP crash blossom

The word ‘crash’ is unnecessary. Another way of solving the problem would be to say ‘crash site’, which is what it really means.

Google strikes again

I have come across this Google translation of this Spanish newspaper article. It is about Pablo Iglesias, the leader of the new Spanish left-wing party Podemos which has entered the European Parliament. I don’t intend to parse it completely but some points are worth mentioning.

Pablo Iglesias search (1) controversy at its (2) premiere (3) at the European Parliament

His lengthy discourse bullfighter jumps to politely (4) and wins him the first scolding. "Never again," he warned (5).

Topics We (4) Pablo Iglesias European Parliament

Lora Macarena (Brussels) 01/07/2014

The leader can (6), Pablo Iglesias , premiered on the floor with a very long speech that earned him his first parliamentary brawl (7). For over a minute, the interim president of the European Parliament urged him to finish his speech, "courtesy with their fellow members." Deaf to the many invitations to close his speech - "I beg, I'll have to interrupt" insisted the president, Iglesias continued asking South deputies that "vote as Greek, Italian (...) , Portuguese or Spanish "against" the authoritarian drift of the troika. "

While Pablo Iglesias raised his voice from his brand new European seat - "the millions that you have said enough in the markets (8), I want to say that you are proud ..." - who served as president of the chamber, Giani Pitella, could not conceal their weariness. "I beg," Churches (9) urged him while still reading his lengthy speech quick-release, "out of respect for their (2) colleagues."

"Sorry, but I must interrupt you," insisted the interim president. "You must close your intervention," warned Pitella, unable to bring to heel an overwhelming parliamentary willing to finish reading the stack of sheets. "Finisco in Sixteen (10) secondi", Iglesias was justified (11) in perfect Italian parliamentary rules while jumping (12).

1. Spanish busca third person of buscar. Should be seeks.

2. A classic. In Spanish the polite verb form Usted takes the third person verb form. The possessive su can thus mean his, her, its, your or their. Google has guessed wrong.

3. He is not a film but Spanish has one word for a first appearance of any kind.

4. Iglesias is not a bullfighter nor was he speaking about bulls. Saltarse algo a la torera means to disregard or flout something. Iglesias overran the time limit  in his first speech in the European Parliament. A torera is the bolero jacket worn by bullfighters but here a la torera means bullfighter style.

5. He was warned. How le advierten (they warned him) has come out like this is anyone’s guess.

6. Podemos is the name of his party. It means We can. Say no more.

7. Bronca is a row, argument. It may perhaps develop into fisticuffs but not necessarily at all.

8. The original is plazas meaning squares. His party has its origins in the people who occupied squares in European cities a few years ago. As a socialist he is not proud of markets.

9. Iglesias does mean churches. It is also his surname!

10. Iglesias spoke an aside in Italian to the Italian President of the chamber saying he would finish in dieci (10) seconds. Google was still in Spanish mode and, presumably, thought it was dieciseis 11. This is se justificaba. The Spanish reflexive often does have a passive meaning but here Iglesias was justifying himself directly.

12. No, he was not jumping up and down in the parliament chamber. This is se saltaba las normas parlamentarias. He got round the rules. See (2). Saltar means jump.

This blog is about language, not politics. Language comments are welcome. Political comments are not.

Tu and vous

One of the biggest problems facing English-speakers learning a feign language has nothing to do with the grammar or vocabulary of the language. It is the social problem of using the familiar or polite form of the personal pronoun. Spanish has the familiar tú and the formal Usted, from Vuestra merced (Your Worship) and takes a third person verb. It’s not always an easy choice. It seems that tú is gaining ground, at least in Spain. Latin America is a different matter; the builder who did some work on my home a few years ago was a perfectly friendly man but he was Argentinian and insisted on Usted. I deal with publishing and distribution companies where Usted seems to be the norm for email but tú is used on the phone. I have heard it said, though I have no evidence, that the Civil War led to a breakdown of formality on both sides and an increasing use of tú. Something similar happened I think, too, after the English Civil War, which led to the disappearance (almost) of thou. The King of Spain, however, has it easy. Everyone calls him Usted and he calls everyone tú.

To make life harder, it’s different in different languages. German for example is much more formal than Spanish. To celebrate Bastille Day the LA Times published an interesting infographic about the use of tu and vous in French. The image cannot be extracted but I attach a screenshot of a part (click to enlarge). The full thing is very well  worth looking at here.

Lavengro Books website

I have made a large-scale revision of the Lavengro Books website. The home page has been completely rewritten and I have added a page of reviews. Also, the links now open in new windows. If anyone cares to look at it, any feedback would be welcome. I have looked at it in various browsers but you never know …