Linguistic round-up: prepositions on the bus; Cornish; Quebec; bad article title
- Overheard on the bus just now (while on my way to see "The Interpreter," before I realized I was two hours early for the next showing):
"I've been practicing in some pretty inappropriate places. Like the Widener microfiche room, of which I got kicked out of. Wait - of which I got kicked out."
As Geoff Pullum notes in his classic LanguageLog post, A Churchill Story Up With Which I Will No Longer Put, even if you like the whole "don't end sentences with a preposition" rule, there are some cases where it's really unavoidable. One of these is when you have two prepositions in a row: you simply can't front one without the other, which is why "...of which I got kicked out" sounded odd enough to the speaker in question that she felt compelled to add the "of" back in at the end.
Not that "... the Widener microfiche room, out of which I got kicked" sounds any better, because like Churchill's infamous (and probably not real) "up with which I will not put" example, in which he simply mangles the phrase "put up with" to make a point, this inelegant construction shreds an idiomatic preposition-taking verb to pieces. "out [of]" is an inalienable part of "kick out [of]," and can't be split off any more than you can split "up" off of "pick up," as my freshman syntax prof so delightfully illustrated: *John picked, and Mary shot, up the heroin.
Teehee.
- In the news: Local MP Swears Oath in Cornish (BBC News, 12 May 2005). Apparently, Andrew George, an MP from St. Ives and a strong advocate for the Cornish language, swore his oath of loyalty to the Queen in Cornish last Thursday. (Or rather, he repeated it in Cornish after saying it in English, as is required.)
For the curious, the two texts: "I swear by Almighty God that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors, according to law. So help me God."
"Me a le gans Dew Ollgallojak del vedhaf len ha perthy omryans gwyr dhe hy braster an vyternes elisabet, hy Erys ha Sewyoryon, herwyth an laha. Ytho Dew re'm gweressa."
Doubt that this will have any real benefit for Cornish, but symbolism is pretty, too.
- From Quebec: Quebec immigrants prefer to speak English, but French use is growing: report (MacLean's, 19 May 2005). "More than 54 per cent of immigrants choose to speak English in 2001, compared with nearly 46 per cent who choose French, said l'Office de la langue francaise. Some 147,700 new Quebecers chose to speak primarily in English, while 124,800 opted for French. Despite the predominance of English, the use of French by immigrants increased from 1991, when 35.8 per cent chose to speak French. In Montreal, 60 per cent of immigrants favoured English in 2001. But one resident in five spoke a language other than English or French at home. That's three times the rate from a decade earlier."
Yay for making predictions in my thesis that actually hold true a couple months later. (See especially chapters 2 and 3.) Wonder how this will affect bilingual deaf ed; I'm pretty sure it won't be helpful. But, um, yay linguistic diversity?
- Speaking of linguistic diversity, worst article title ever: South Africa May Cut 7 Tongues Out (News24, 25 April 2005). What they mean to say is that South Africa, which currently has 11 official languages, is thinking of whittling that down to 4. "Dr Neville Alexander, director of the Project for the Research of Alternative Education in South Africa (Praesa), said if the correct approach was used, people would not feel threatened or think that it was wrong to have only four official languages."
"Wrong to have only four official languages"? Yeesh. If only the English For the Children and OneNation.org people could hear that. I'd pay to see them spit pea soup at the idea that societal multilingualism could be considered a threat because it involved *too few* languages.
And on all these (not too terribly academic) notes, I leave you for Nicole Kidman speaking Ku. Yay. :c)
As Geoff Pullum notes in his classic LanguageLog post, A Churchill Story Up With Which I Will No Longer Put, even if you like the whole "don't end sentences with a preposition" rule, there are some cases where it's really unavoidable. One of these is when you have two prepositions in a row: you simply can't front one without the other, which is why "...of which I got kicked out" sounded odd enough to the speaker in question that she felt compelled to add the "of" back in at the end.
Not that "... the Widener microfiche room, out of which I got kicked" sounds any better, because like Churchill's infamous (and probably not real) "up with which I will not put" example, in which he simply mangles the phrase "put up with" to make a point, this inelegant construction shreds an idiomatic preposition-taking verb to pieces. "out [of]" is an inalienable part of "kick out [of]," and can't be split off any more than you can split "up" off of "pick up," as my freshman syntax prof so delightfully illustrated: *John picked, and Mary shot, up the heroin.
Teehee.
- In the news: Local MP Swears Oath in Cornish (BBC News, 12 May 2005). Apparently, Andrew George, an MP from St. Ives and a strong advocate for the Cornish language, swore his oath of loyalty to the Queen in Cornish last Thursday. (Or rather, he repeated it in Cornish after saying it in English, as is required.)
For the curious, the two texts: "I swear by Almighty God that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors, according to law. So help me God."
"Me a le gans Dew Ollgallojak del vedhaf len ha perthy omryans gwyr dhe hy braster an vyternes elisabet, hy Erys ha Sewyoryon, herwyth an laha. Ytho Dew re'm gweressa."
Doubt that this will have any real benefit for Cornish, but symbolism is pretty, too.
- From Quebec: Quebec immigrants prefer to speak English, but French use is growing: report (MacLean's, 19 May 2005). "More than 54 per cent of immigrants choose to speak English in 2001, compared with nearly 46 per cent who choose French, said l'Office de la langue francaise. Some 147,700 new Quebecers chose to speak primarily in English, while 124,800 opted for French. Despite the predominance of English, the use of French by immigrants increased from 1991, when 35.8 per cent chose to speak French. In Montreal, 60 per cent of immigrants favoured English in 2001. But one resident in five spoke a language other than English or French at home. That's three times the rate from a decade earlier."
Yay for making predictions in my thesis that actually hold true a couple months later. (See especially chapters 2 and 3.) Wonder how this will affect bilingual deaf ed; I'm pretty sure it won't be helpful. But, um, yay linguistic diversity?
- Speaking of linguistic diversity, worst article title ever: South Africa May Cut 7 Tongues Out (News24, 25 April 2005). What they mean to say is that South Africa, which currently has 11 official languages, is thinking of whittling that down to 4. "Dr Neville Alexander, director of the Project for the Research of Alternative Education in South Africa (Praesa), said if the correct approach was used, people would not feel threatened or think that it was wrong to have only four official languages."
"Wrong to have only four official languages"? Yeesh. If only the English For the Children and OneNation.org people could hear that. I'd pay to see them spit pea soup at the idea that societal multilingualism could be considered a threat because it involved *too few* languages.
And on all these (not too terribly academic) notes, I leave you for Nicole Kidman speaking Ku. Yay. :c)