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Stranded P postings

July 7, 2009

Another inventory of postings on Language Log and this blog, this time on stranded prepositions.

As before, I’ve omitted postings where the subject phenomenon is mentioned only in passing.

ML, 10/10/03: Quoi ce-qu’elle a parlé about?:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000032.html
stranded Ps in Canadian French

ML, 4/11/04: An internet pilgrim’s guide to stranded prepositions:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000743.html

BP, 6/19/04: What for:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001084.html
chains of stranded Ps

GP, 12/8/04: A Churchill story up with which I will no longer put:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001702.html

BZ (posted by GP), 12/12/04: A misattribution no longer to be put up with:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001715.html

ML, 4/25/05: Better a spectacular blunder than a hint of unseemliness:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002095.html
omitting stranded P

AZ, 5/17/05: Ending with a preposition:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002168.html
a stranded P cartoon

ML, 5/21/05: More on Canadian French preposition stranding:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002187.html

AZ, 6/2/05: Who are you writing to?:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002219.html
a stranded P cartoon

AZ, 6/21/05: The CliffsNotes version:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002254.html
stranded P in the CliffsNotes grammar manual

ML, 6/29/05: If we look, simply, to the French:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002273.html
French as a model for English P use

ML, 6/30/05: The French aren’t really against:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002274.html
stranded Ps in (European) French

AZ, 7/4/05: That’s American:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002291.html
increase in stranding as an aspect of “colloquialization”

AZ, 7/5/05: Avoidance:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002292.html
including avoiding stranded P

AZ, 7/7/05: Get ’em while they’re young:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002298.html
Ruth Heller on prepositions, for children

GP, 9/20/05: New Yorker search engine stark staring mad:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002485.html
“I’m sorry I couldn’t find that for which you were looking.”

BZ, 11/27/05: Churchill vs. editorial nonsense:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002670.html

AZ, 11/4/06: Grammar on the gay beat:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003734.html
P stranding in Genre magazine

AZ, 11/23/06: Let’s meet at mine:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003811.html
stranding vs. fronting

AZ, 3/3/07: Self-incorrection:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004266.html
“fixing” stranded prepositions

ML, 5/1/07: Hot Dryden-on-Jonson action:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004454.html

ML, 5/3/07: A note of dignity or austerity:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004464.html
combination of stranded and fronted P

ML, 5/4/07: Back to the future, redundant preposition department:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004465.html
combination of stranded and fronted P

ML, 5/14/07: A phenomenon in which I’m starting to believe in:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004493.html
combination of stranded and fronted P

GP, 5/15/07: Could preposition doubling be headed our way?:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004498.html
combination of stranded and fronted P

ML, 5/19/07: Re-doubled prepositions:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004510.html
combination of stranded and fronted P

ML, 8/25/07: Prepositional anxiety and Voldemort’s wand:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004854.html
incorrection of stranded P

AZ, 5/10/08: Contamination:

Contamination


Dryden’s Rule contaminating stranded to

ML, 8/21/08: Heaping of catmummies considered harmful:

Heaping of catmummies considered harmful


mostly about split infinitives, but with a bit on stranded P

GP, 4/25/09: Room for debate on Strunk and White:

Room For Debate on Strunk and White


GP response to Colin John re Burchfield’s entry on “preposition at end”

AZ, 5/6/09: Interesting sentences:

Interesting sentences


“not a good sentence with which to begin a story”

GP, 7/7/09: A “dumb copy editor” story from George Lakoff:

A “dumb copy editor” story from George Lakoff


Metaphors We Live By

Grammarville


“Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of”

GP, 4/25/09: Room for debate on Strunk and White:

Room For Debate on Strunk and White


GP response to Colin John re Burchfield’s entry on “preposition at end”

AZ, 5/6/09: Interesting sentences:

Interesting sentences


“not a good sentence with which to begin a story”

Grammarville


“Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of”

GP, 7/7/09: A “dumb copy editor” story from George Lakoff:

A “dumb copy editor” story from George Lakoff


Metaphors We Live By

Posted in For reference | 4 Comments »

One Right Way

June 28, 2009

Yet another inventory of postings (on Language Log and on this blog), this time on references to One Right Way in usage advice.

One Right Way  is the “one form, one meaning” principle (which has been articulated by a number of writers in various contexts) turned into usage advice, with two parts:

(1) There is One Right Way to use an expression; a form should have only one meaning.

(2) There is One Right Way to express a meaning; a meaning should be expressed by only one form. No true synonyms.

Both clauses are used to object to lexical innovations (or what are perceived to be innovations), among other things: clause (1) to object to extensions of meanings (decimate ‘devastate’ is a famous example) and to category shifts (verbings, nounings, and adjings, as in the case of fun); and clause (2) to object to novel lexical items, including back-formations, and also to the cases covered by (1) (on the grounds that the language already has ways of expressing the meaning in question).  There are other uses as well, described in the postings below.

The inventory covers only postings where the label One Right Way is used. As a result, they’re all by me, since I’m the writer who regularly uses this label (in these blogs and in ADS-L).

(more…)

Posted in For reference, Usage advice | 9 Comments »

Omit Needless postings

June 27, 2009

 

Another inventory, this time of postings (on this blog, on New Language Log, and on Language Log Classic) in which “Omit Needless” advice (mostly Omit Needless Words, or ONW, but sometimes advice to omit other things) plays a role. The inventory was prepared by Tim Moon as part of this summer’s work on the OI! project, under the sponsorship of the office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education at Stanford. The inventory is current up to 6/21/09.

(more…)

Posted in For reference | 2 Comments »

Postings on split infinitives

June 13, 2009

Another list of postings, this time on split infinitives. I looked for postings that had something substantial to say about them, rather than just mentioning them in passing.

For a compact discussion of the topic, see Geoff Pullum’s treatment on his website.

AZ, 5/14/04: Obligatorily split infinitives:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000901.html

GN, 5/23/04: Split decision:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000948.html

GP, 9/20/04: Two bites of authors’ remorse:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001466.html

GP, 4/11/05: The pointless game of Grammar Gotcha:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002054.html

AZ, 5/7/05: Not to or to not:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002139.html

GP, 5/19/05: Obligatorily split infinitive in real life:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002180.html

AZ, 7/14/05: No splitting in court:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002326.html

EB, 11/5/05: Better to X than to not Y:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002627.html

GP, 3/29/07: Joe, this is for you:
“http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004348.html

GP, 4/29/08: Irrational terror over adjunct placement at Harvard:

Irrational terror over adjunct placement at Harvard

GP, 4/30/08: Books more loved than looked in:

Books more loved than looked in

AZ, 5/2/08: Nonintervention:

Nonintervention

AZ, 5/10/08: Contamination:

Contamination

AZ, 5/13/08: Crazies win:

Crazies win

ML, 8/21/08: Heaping of catmummies considered harmful:

Heaping of catmummies considered harmful

GP, 8/21/08: Minor writers, revolt!:

Minor writers, revolt!


 
GP, 9/26/08: Inconsistent Latinophilia:

Inconsistent Latinophilia

Posted in For reference, Split infinitives, Usage advice | 1 Comment »

Postings on 2-p b-f verbs

June 13, 2009

Back-formations come in several flavors. Recently I’ve been posting on two-part back-formed (2-p b-f) verbs; a list of these postings is given below, for your reference. But there are also:

simple back-formed verbs (like incent);

nouns back-formed from nouns in -s, with the -s interpreted, ahistorically, as the mark of the plural (kudo);

other back-formed nouns (taxon, from taxonomy);

adjectives back-formed from negative adjectives by eliminating a negative prefix (couth);

other back-formed adjectives (gullible).

Back-formed verbs are hugely more numerous than the other types.

The list:

AZ, 8/22/08: To gay marry:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=519

AZ, 11/2/08: Early/absentee vote (the verbs):
 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=795

AZ, 4/5/09: scuba dove?:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1296

http://arnoldzwicky.org/2009/06/08/child-rear/

http://arnoldzwicky.org/2009/06/08/todays-two-part-back-formed-verb-inventory/

http://arnoldzwicky.org/2009/06/09/back-formings/

Posted in Back formation, For reference | 1 Comment »

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