What's really strange is when I read "Nearly a quarter million pounds" and "Over two hundred thousand pounds", I thought, "That's a lot of money." And I've never been to England.
I did hear Michael Caine last night say that his mother asked how much he makes per movie. He told her "A million pounds." She asked him, "How much is that?"
I also use to joke, in a British accent, that I'd enrolled in a diet program, and lost twenty pounds but was actually heavier.
But you're right--using the larger increment makes it seem bigger, as long as the fraction isn't too small. I remember calling my eldest and saying that I wanted to let him know that he was at that moment a quarter of a century old to the nearest minute. I don't think it has the same impact if you tell a ten year old that he is a tenth of a century old--that fraction is too small, and a tenth of a century seems a very small piece as compared with ten whole years.
--M. J. Young
Another interesting thing about double negatives is that English used to have them. Old English, specifically the West Saxon dialect, used multiple negatives to express a negative thought, and this became more common in Middle English. At some point (I'm not sure when) it became less common, and then it came to be considered incorrect.
I get the impression that the "rule" where two negatives should really make a positive is an attempt to explain a change that had already happened. Double negatives stopped being used, or at least stopped being used in the prevailing dialect. And at some point, when someone was asked to explain *why,* they explained it in terms of mathematics--just as subtracting a negative gives you a positive, two negatives cancel each other out in language.
What's really strange is when I read "Nearly a quarter million pounds" and "Over two hundred thousand pounds", I thought, "That's a lot of money." And I've never been to England.
Which is really funny, because originally, I was going to say "A quarter of a million dollars" but I wanted to leave out the reference to money.
I agree about double negatives. It's one of the problems of grammar that it is essentially descriptive but taught as prescriptive. That becomes a problem because if we recognize it as descriptive we lose any "force" to the rules, but if we maintain that it is prescriptive we struggle with the fact that language does change. On the other hand, if we give up teaching it as prescriptive, we face the hazard that a rising generation will abandon the "rules" and create their own language, and then will become unable to communicate with each other. We have some of this already, with Valley and 133+.
(I just saw a cartoon panel in which a kid at a 133+ spelling bee is saying, "2morrow. Could you please use that in an incomplete sentence?")
I note that in Greek double negatives are almost always intensifying. I was just reading in II Corinthians 13 this afternoon, where Paul literally writes that he prays "you will not do nothing evil." In his language, that means he is putting a lot of emphasis on negation, what we would have to render "you will not do anything evil at all" to get close to the same emphasis.
On the other hand, this intensification of negatives makes it more difficult to say some things which cancelling negatives make possible. We can say, for example, "I do not want you not to go." That expresses something distinct from "I want you to go;" it states quite specifically that it is not the speaker's desire that the hearer be restrained, but it does not express a specific desire on the part of the speaker for the hearer to leave, which the alternative does.
So cancelling negatives do not really eliminate the meaning of each in every case; they create unique meanings sometimes, which cannot be so easily created in languages which have intensifying negatives.
--M. J. Young
Which is really funny, because originally, I was going to say "A quarter of a million dollars" but I wanted to leave out the reference to money.
And I didn't realize you weren't talking about money until just now. I suppose I expect to hear "tons" when it's that much weight under discussion.
That's why. I knew there was a reason. No one talks about more than a few thousand pounds, because after two thousand it's usually sufficient to speak in tons--you can say "three thousand pounds", but "one and a half tons" is more likely, unless accuracy matters; and it doesn't usually matter when you get to those numbers, because if the weight limit is three thousand pounds, no one thinks that two thousand nine hundred ninety-nine pounds is clearly safe but three thousand one pounds is going to break it.I suppose I expect to hear "tons" when it's that much weight under discussion.
Thanks. I thought it was odd that I thought money instead of weight, but now I know why.
--M. J. Young
if the weight limit is three thousand pounds, no one thinks that two thousand nine hundred ninety-nine pounds is clearly safe but three thousand one pounds is going to break it.
Unless you're writing for a cartoon show. Then three thousand pounds and one micro gram is enough to break it.
Two Posts
Ya know, that reminds me of a world idea that I had. The planet's orbit is so precisely balanced that the arrival of the weight of the verser and his equipment throws the orbit out of alignment. The orbit would have to be pretty damn unstable for an extra 400 pounds to make that much of a difference, but it was just something I was thinking about.
"you will not do anything evil at all" to get close to the same emphasis
I would think that "you will never do anything evil" would be stronger, but then, I am a slight victim of the very problems under discussion here, being a member of the new generation. For example, I never even notice when someone splits an infinitive, because "everyone does it". So far as I know, I do not do it.
Anyway, if anyone notices me making a grammatical error, don't be afraid to comment on it, I would appreciate the help.
MJ: what is the difference between vector and farmer? I have been sounding it out over and over, and unless vector is actually pronounced vect-OR (as opposed to identical to -er), I don't see it. I am a really good speller and I do have a good vocabulary, but pronunciation can be an issue because I learned a large amount of the words I know via context clues (I don't own a dictionary). I actually don't know what words still in my vocabulary I mispronounce, if any, but I really try to fix my usage where possible. On the other hand, I know the difference between wear and where quite easily, and other things I can't recall off the top of my head.
I think MJ wants vect- as in checked and -or as in for. My problem with that is I can't say it without changing the stress pattern of the word; for me (and a lot of folks that grew up on English, I think), unstressed vowels generally become schwa*, so to say it with a non-schwa vowel in the second syllable I have to give that syllable secondary stress. (Not primary stress, like the second syllable in Danielle, but secondary, like the second syllable in chessboard - as opposed to unstressed, like the second syllable in funny.)
Edit: By the way, I really don't like giving pronunciations with the "as in x" method - it's imprecise, and its accuracy is at the mercy of dialectal variation - but I'm pressed for time and so I don't want to paste in IPA without even knowing if you're familiar with it. If you are, let me know and I'll use it in future.
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* or, if the original vowel is tense and front, the vowel's lax counterpart, but that's irrelevant here. Edit: The English high-front vowel can be unstressed as well (as the example of "funny" shows), but it's still not relevant to "vector." I'm not thinking this through clearly, but my point is that I can't leave back vowels entirely unstressed.
Eh, I figured the capitalization would show the stress on -or well enough, and at the time I wrote it I thought it was obvious I meant or as in for, but hey, guess not. Most people say -er for both -er and -or, and I wanted to make sure I knew what he was saying. I do now. Thanks.
You were clear enough. I was concerned about my own clarity, not yours. I just finished four years' worth of BA in Linguistics, and I itch whenever I write about pronunciation without using the International Phonetic Alphabet, but most people most of the time can get by without it (for example: us, now).
Speaking of my own clarity, I think MJ probably stresses the first syllable more than the second - not vekTOR, but VEKtor. I think that's what you meant, too.
mmm, yes, but I should have stated it the way you did, or as in for, it makes it that much easier to understand. We understand each other then. good.
Yes to Scott's explanation, with the caveat that my own pronunciation has deteriorated significantly and I often find myself using the schwa pronunciation in unaccented final syllables, particularly those ending in R. Still, I know the other pronunciation, and it helps my spelling immensely--it's not arbitrary differences in spelling, but differences that reflect distinct pronunciation that is fading in modern dialects. So particularly on common words I say "docter" instead of "doctor"; but I almost always say "proctor", not "procter", precisely because it is less common.
--M. J. Young