# Mourning the continuing loss of negatives



## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

So many of the correct negative words are it seems gradually disappearing from spoken & written English or are being used incorrectly.

*NOR*
I mourn the loss of the word "nor" both written & spoken. Many people nowadays use "or" or "and" in place of the correct "nor" 
It seems to have been forgotten that "nor" is both the negative form of or and can be used as a replacement for "neither" and for "or not"

Incorrect - "Neither you *or *I" This has been in widespread use for years so that many people aren't even aware of the error anymore.

Incorrect - "He won't do that again, *and* I won't *either*" 
Correct - "He won't do that again, *nor* will I"
Also correct - "He won't do that again, *neither* will I"

Correct in the English of the 19th century: Person A: "that's not going to work" Person B in reply: "nor will it"
However, current English accepts the following as perfectly okay: Person A: "that's not going to work" Person B in reply: "*no it won't"*

*
ANYTHING / ANYBODY / ANYONE*_*

NB: *a_nything should not be confused with any thing
Anything, anyone,anybody should only be used in questions and negative statements. But almost everyday I hear English speakers (mostly American) using them incorrectly in positive statements or using something/somebody/someone in questions

Incorrect: Is there *something *we can do to help?
Incorrect: Is there *someone *in the bathroom?
Incorrect: There isn't *something* in the bag. (unlikely even for the most uneducated but only here as an incorrect example)

*NB:* However, while only *anything* should be used in negative statements, both anything and something can be used in positive statements:
correct: If I think of anything/something I'll give you call.


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## Langham (Nov 7, 2012)

Anyone bemoaning the transformation of English is like King Canute (or Cnut, if you prefer) - if it didn't keep changing, it would be a dead West German language, rather than the most spoken language in the world.


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## Tilton (Nov 27, 2011)

> "that's not going to work" Person B in reply: "nor will it"


Unless this situation is nothing like your cited "current usage" sitation, this example is incorrect. Nor must present a non-contrasting, negative, second (or last) alternative. If the above example were, for example, two men looking at two different diagrams for kitchen rennovations and the first man realizes his set of plans will not fit and says "that's not going to work" and the second man looks at his set of plans and says "not will it," then your example is correct. If, as in your second example, it were two men looking at one set of plans and the first realizes the plans will not work and the second agrees with him, nor would be inappropriate because it is not introducing a second alternative.


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## Pale_Male (May 20, 2013)

Contemporary American View: "Ain't nobody gonna tell me what to do!"


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Langham said:


> Anyone bemoaning the transformation of English is like King Canute (or Cnut, if you prefer)


You are mixing up two things 1. the accepted development and changes to a language (or transformation, if yuo prefer) and 2. forms of grammar that are not accepted within the currently recognised grammar of a language. It is the latter that applies to my initial post.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Tilton said:


> Unless this situation is nothing like your cited "current usage" sitation, this example is incorrect. Nor must present a non-contrasting, negative, second (or last) alternative. If the above example were, for example, two men looking at two different diagrams for kitchen rennovations and the first man realizes his set of plans will not fit and says "that's not going to work" and the second man looks at his set of plans and says "not will it," then your example is correct. If, as in your second example, it were two men looking at one set of plans and the first realizes the plans will not work and the second agrees with him, nor would be inappropriate because it is not introducing a second alternative.


"nor will it/he/she/they" is an emphatic reply, which is grammatically correct and was in wide usage into the middle of the 20th century.


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## Langham (Nov 7, 2012)

Earl of Ormonde said:


> You are mixing up two things 1. the accepted development and changes to a language (or transformation, if yuo prefer) and 2. forms of grammar that are not accepted within the currently recognised grammar of a language. It is the latter that applies to my initial post.


 'Not accepted' just sounds rather pompous - like the Academie Francaise attempting to halt any change to French. Change happens whether you like it or not.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Okay, put it this way then: "not widely and generally considered as correct". No need to start being rude using words like "pompous".


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## Langham (Nov 7, 2012)

^ I didn't intend to be rude, but you are pompous, aren't you? That's the way some of your postings come across, anyway.


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## Tilton (Nov 27, 2011)

Earl of Ormonde said:


> "nor will it/he/she/they" is an emphatic reply, which is grammatically correct and was in wide usage into the middle of the 20th century.


Perhaps it was accepted, but it is certainly not grammatically correct. Frankly, my guess is that such a usage would be only a regionally-accepted colloquialism.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Langham said:


> but you are pompous, aren't you?


I'm not pompous at all, honestly. I feel sad now to think that others might think me pompous or arrogant because my choice of words is poor or because my style of writing is forthright and perhaps sometimes a bit insensitive. It really makes me dislike the net even more to think that people are getting the completely wrong idea about who or what I am.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Tilton said:


> Frankly, my guess is that such a usage would be only a regionally-accepted colloquialism.


Certainly it ended up as such, only being heard in Ireland at the end. But earlier on it was widespread.


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## Tilton (Nov 27, 2011)

Earl of Ormonde said:


> You are mixing up two things 1. the accepted development and changes to a language (or transformation, if yuo prefer) and 2. forms of grammar that are not accepted within the currently recognised grammar of a language. It is the latter that applies to my initial post.


Not really. You do understand how grammar and usage change, don't you? There is no higher body of English language speakers that determines what changes have been accepted each calendar year. Changes first happen in speech, then eventually become widely accepted by enough speakers of a given language that said changes become accepted as correct - and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Further, a 50-year span of increasingly wider usage would very easily take any relatively mild change that you would place under #2, to a very solid hold in #1. Also, what you're talking about is not transformational grammar.


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## Tilton (Nov 27, 2011)

Earl of Ormonde said:


> Certainly it ended up as such, only being heard in Ireland at the end. But earlier on it was widespread.


Do you have evidence of an emphatic usage of nor in a context where it could not be explained as a character using a regional colloquialism?


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## Joseph Peter (Mar 26, 2012)

Having been an English major in college eons ago, did the Modern Language Association, at least in the U.S., lose its hold on syntax, usage, etc? However, I suppose in this era nothing and no one is authoritative.

As a matter of logic, putting aside usage, "nor" is word of negative elimination. I, like the Earl, cringe when confronted with the improper use of "nor" and "or". It is probably best to not address the "lay", "lain", and "laid" issue before we twist ourselves further.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Tilton said:


> Do you have evidence of an emphatic usage of nor in a context where it could not be explained as a character using a regional colloquialism?


You'll find it in plenty of old literature if you care to look, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Dickens.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Tilton said:


> You do understand how grammar and usage change, don't you?


hhmmm.....should I be rude in reply to that and risk being called pompous again? Or should I just ignore it?


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## Tilton (Nov 27, 2011)

Earl of Ormonde said:


> hhmmm.....should I be rude in reply to that and risk being called pompous again? Or should I just ignore it?


Yeah, that may have been a bit harsh wording. Sorry. But, really, I don't hear people using either/nor or neither/or. I have read my share (and more) of Shakespeare and the like and do not ever recall such a use of nor. Lots of "No will not ___! Nor will I ____!" but that is in line with the second or last alternative scenario I mentioned above.


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## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

Earl of Ormonde said:


> I'm not pompous at all, honestly. I feel sad now to think that others might think me pompous or arrogant because my choice of words is poor or because my style of writing is forthright and perhaps sometimes a bit insensitive. It really makes me dislike the net even more to think that people are getting the completely wrong idea about who or what I am.


For what it's worth Earl: I'm with you on this issue.

I don't mind our language evolving but must it devolve because people are too lazy (or stupid) to learn the basics?


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Shaver said:


> For what it's worth Earl: I'm with you on this issue.
> 
> I don't mind our language evolving but must it devolve because people are too lazy (or stupid) to learn the basics?


Thank you. And that is exactly what I mean, this constant "language is constantly developing" argument is always erroneously used in my opinion by people wanting to excuse poor education, lack of knowledge and lazyness in speech and writing. Ebonics was a classic example. Texting is another when it leaves the realm of the mobile phone and turns up on discussion forums and in printed texts, where it can only be assumed the writer had access to a full keyboard and the time to write his/her article or forum response or whatever else it might be.

Just because some people want to hurry up a process of change in a language, for argument's sake let's use nor as the example, i.e. they want to get rid of the word nor as they consider "or" and "and" as sufficient. That doesn't mean that is is accepted by the majority.

The polar opposite of this of course are those who continue to use obsolete vocabulary and spelling e.g. connexion, reflexion. Or one of Winston Churchill's pet hates in language which was people who always had to ensure that they never ended a sentence with a preposition, even to the ridiculous extent of removing a verb particle that happened to also be a preposition e.g. to, up, in. He was a strong proponent of the Basic English movement and used to give examples of how awkward some old English forms sounded when sticking 100% to the old grammar of the day, which was incorrectly based on Latin grammar anyway. 
This is the most famous one mocking the rule & exists in many versions often w/o the "bloody" but this one is quoted in the OC to the EL as the original: "_This is the sort of bloody nonsense _up with which _I will not put."_


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## Langham (Nov 7, 2012)

_Is_ there a body of people trying to 'hurry up a process of change in [our] language'? I don't think so - the language is simply changing as it has always changed, in line with common usage. The reasons _may_ include poor education, ignorance and laziness, as you suggest, together with convenience, but there are other forces at play also, such as the contributions of poets and writers, as well as scientists and inventors, for whom new language must be created when the old language is incapable of serving their needs. The fact that change is happening probably means it _is_ (eventually) accepted by the majority - otherwise it just wouldn't happen.

In France there is a learned body, the Academie Francaise, which advises on the French language and attempts, in a rather centralised and authoritarian way, for example, to prevent the infiltration of rosbif loan words such as 'le weekend' and 'email' for which there are no French equivalents. The attempt has not succeeded, because language is perhaps not a top-down process. I can only think of dead languages such as Latin and classical Greek, that are impervious to change.

English grammar is highly flexible, if not all over the shop, compared to some other languages (German comes to mind), but I would say that is a strength rather than a weakness. Its adaptability in the form of creole and pidgin English may well have had a lot to do with the early spread of trade and the British Empire.


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## MaxBuck (Apr 4, 2013)

A great deal of what appears to be "laziness" in language results from failures in education. English teachers today exhibit a shocking lack of familiarity with proper usage and construction, and I doubt many students today are forced to diagram a sentence.

I never took collegiate-level English, but I'm convinced I would've "learned" as much incorrect information as correct. I've been self-taught, largely, and by my parents, but it's really not easy in most of the U.S. to get proper instruction in grammar.


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## Langham (Nov 7, 2012)

MaxBuck said:


> A great deal of what appears to be "laziness" in language results from failures in education. English teachers today exhibit a shocking lack of familiarity with proper usage and construction.


That is also the case in many British schools. It is the outcome of a curriculum that has diminished the importance of written English, for instance by downplaying essay-writing in favour of multiple-choice systems. A faulty system of teaching reading and writing has resulted in several generations of functionally illiterate school-leavers for whom reading books has also been displaced by other activities; and worse still, teachers whose own grasp of English is sometimes shockingly poor.

This is all hastening the process that so distresses the Earl of Ormonde, although as I have tried to point out, there are other forces at play also.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Very true Langham. At primary school in the 60s and early 70s we received no grammar instruction. Even in my secondary RC comprehensive in the 70s we weren't taught grammar. We were taught correct English by observing the corrections to the errors in our essays. Our English language lessons consisted of reading, writing and listening and very little actual language study or discussion of the rules. Our English Lit. lessons consisted of the reading, discussion and analysis of authors and poets, and essay writing, however what this mostly meant was reading endless works by Shakespeare and Chaucer, and learning seminal poems by First World War poets. I first studied English grammar in-depth prior to studying Swedish at university as I realised it would not only benefit me in the study of a foreign language, rather that it was a necessity if I were to understand all the grammatical terms and constructions used by the Swedish teacher. I was right in that realisation, as in the first few weeks of the term several of the other students were struggling with the simplest of grammatical terms, like adverb, adjective, pronoun, preposition. 

Bottom line: English grammar teaching, in London at any rate, was already in a shocking state in the 60s.


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## Joseph Peter (Mar 26, 2012)

Show of hands: who has been taught to diagram a sentence? 1

P.S. Excellent topic, Earl.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Langham said:


> although as I have tried to point out, there are other forces at play also.


I do accept that, I think the major culprit though (rather than a natural development of speech at a natural pace) is the need for the rapid creation & delivery of text both spoken and written due to the excessive use of fast electronic media, added to the fact that people rarely seem to have time to even speak to each other face to face at a moderate pace any more.

I really dislike when someone addresses you and then carries on speaking to you while walking away from you, I just ignore them. And if they walk away while I'm responding I just stop talking.

Another thing I do is start talking loudly to someone else in a gathering if a person in the group answers a mobile phone thus expecting the group to remain silent, while they take the call, especially if they do it on coffee or lunch break or in a pub.

And if I am in a meeting with someone & they answer their phone without first saying something like "excuse me, I must take this" I just get up and walk out.

This priority of e-mail, mobiles and internet over human communication has to be controlled.


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## Mike Petrik (Jul 5, 2005)

Langham,
You could have responded to Earl and Shaver more economically by simply posting:

"I could care less."

Which conveniently would have expressed their point as well.


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## Tilton (Nov 27, 2011)

Earl of Ormonde said:


> Or one of Winston Churchill's pet hates in language which was people who always had to ensure that they never ended a sentence with a preposition, even to the ridiculous extent of removing a verb particle that happened to also be a preposition e.g. to, up, in.


This is an excellent example of a grammar myth. Ending a sentence with a proposition is ONLY wrong if the preposition is extraneous. However, that doesn't make sense to children just leaning grammar and writing, so it is easier to tell them to rearrange a sentence so the preposition is NEVER at the end than to try to explain extraneous/non-extraneous prepositions. If I step in a pile of something warm and squishy, my thought is "what did I step on?" That's how the brain works syntactically, and then the language (sometimes, depending on which grammarian you ask) transforms that into "on what did I step?" which is not the natural order of thinking, at least for most Indo-European language-speakers. Extraneous prepositions are just a waste of breath: without altering the meaning, I can ask "Where's your bathroom?" instead of "Where's your bathroom at?"


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Excellent Mike.


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## Tilton (Nov 27, 2011)

Joseph Peter said:


> Show of hands: who has been taught to diagram a sentence? 1
> 
> P.S. Excellent topic, Earl.


Interesting question. Diagram how? The good ol' middle school/high school method:










Or the Chomskyan surface structure transformational-generative grammar method:










I would guess most for the former, much fewer for the latter.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Tilton said:


> This is an excellent example of a grammar myth.


Exactly, because it was English grammar taught as it was for centuries using Latin grammatical rules, and as such was believed by many and followed by many for centuries as correct grammar. When in fact ending a sentence with a preposition in the Germanic languages is perfectly acceptable.


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

Pale_Male said:


> Contemporary American View: "Ain't nobody gonna tell me what to do!"


nobody really says "gonna" anymore, Do they?


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## Langham (Nov 7, 2012)

Mike Petrik said:


> Langham,
> You could have responded to Earl and Shaver more economically by simply posting:
> 
> "I could care less."
> ...


Very good, I could have, only Andy pays pays me by the word, so I like to go on a bit...


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## Joseph Peter (Mar 26, 2012)

Outstanding, Mr. Tilton! Both here.


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## Mike Petrik (Jul 5, 2005)

Langham said:


> Very good, I could have, only Andy pays pays me by the word, so I like to go on a bit...


Understood. Writers must earn a living, especially if they like nice clothes.


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## Tilton (Nov 27, 2011)

Joseph Peter said:


> Outstanding, Mr. Tilton! Both here.


Ah! Excellent. We true grammar nerds are surely few and far between.

Earl: English is far more adaptive than most other languages (especially romance languages), but often not taught as such. I recall learning in primary school that one should never begin a sentence with "and," "but," or "or." Such rules make learning simpler, but almost every rule in the language has at least one exception.


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## dba (Oct 22, 2010)

Joseph Peter said:


> Having been an English major in college eons ago, did the Modern Language Association, at least in the U.S., lose its hold on syntax, usage, etc? However, I suppose in this era nothing and no one is authoritative.
> 
> As a matter of logic, putting aside usage, "nor" is word of negative elimination. I, like the Earl, cringe when confronted with the improper use of "nor" and "or". It is probably best to not address the "lay", "lain", and "laid" issue before we twist ourselves further.


Not to mention "there", "their" and "they're".



Mike Petrik said:


> Langham,
> You could have responded to Earl and Shaver more economically by simply posting:
> 
> "I could care less."
> ...


Or should it be, "I couldn't care less"? :eek2:

Sometimes I find it all expressed best by Yul Brynner in 'The King and I', "Is a puzzlement!"


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## Langham (Nov 7, 2012)

dba said:


> Or should it be, "I couldn't care less"? :eek2:
> 
> Sometimes I find it all expressed best by Yul Brynner in 'The King and I', "Is a puzzlement!"


I had assumed Mike's omission of the negative was intentional, following the theme of the thread?


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Tilton said:


> I recall learning in primary school that one should never begin a sentence with "and," "but," or "or."


However, as I'm sure you are aware those were rules taken from Latin grammar and pose no grammatical error in the Germanic languages. It is true what you say about the Germanic languages, they are much more adaptable to myriad changes to word order when compared to the Romance languages. It is an acknowledged fact by many linguists that any foreigner can totally deconstruct a sentences and put together the most basic English words in any order and still get his/her meaning across, I have experienced that not only with people in London but all over Europe,such however is not possible for example with the Romance and Celtic groups. To highlight this even further Irish (Gaeilge) unlike English, German, Swedish has no passive verb form. In English you could say: "It's home I'm going" instead of "I'm going home.". In Irish that is impossible it is always Tá mé ag dul abhaile. (Is me away home) The first word Tá is the verb. EVERY sentence in Irish starts with the verb.

So yes, English is very versatile. As is Swedish. Funnily enough though while the Romance & Celtic languages, which once belonged to the same proto-language group, Latin was very flexible with word order because the word endings determined meaning not the word order, Finnish is still the same. Latin numbers were also very flexible, it is only because the lines above the Roman numerals would be awkward for computers and typewriters that we today write 2000 as MM. A Roman 2000 years ago, especially in commerce would have been just as comfortable writing 2000 as CC with a line above the CC or even II with 2 lines above the II, in much the same way as we today in graphs and tables can count millions using the thousand symbol, as long as it is indicated in the legend. Or in the same way as we can say 3,500 as either "35 hundred" or "3 and a half thousand" or "3 thousand 500 hundred" or even "3 and a half K".


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Langham said:


> I had assumed Mike's omission of the negative was intentional, following the theme of the thread?


Exactly.


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## Mike Petrik (Jul 5, 2005)

Yes, gents. Your assumption is correct.


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## MaxBuck (Apr 4, 2013)

Tilton said:


> I recall learning in primary school that one should never begin a sentence with "and," "but," or "or."


I remember learning that in early schooling also. And I ignore the rule frequently. But I try not to flout it for no reason.


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