Re: [Pan-users] Re: Pan Docs 070101

[Tim Kynerd]

Duncan wrote:
> Tim Kynerd <address@hidden> posted
> address@hidden, excerpted below, on  Sat, 06 Jan 2007 00:49:06
> -0600:
>
>   
> > Unfortunately, the English language isn't even that consistent. Usenet is
> > a medium, but we're not even consistent about how we refer to media. You
> > watch TV, but you listen to the radio and you go to the movies; you surf
> > the Internet, but you post to Usenet.
> >     
>
> Well, the TV/radio thing is easy.  You can listen to "the radio", and
> watch "the TV", either one, talking about a specific one.  You can also
> watch "TV" and listen to "radio".  It's the same thing as shearing "the
> sheep" if you have only one (or one flock), or shearing "sheep", if you are
> talking about it in general (shearing sheep for a living, but when it's a
> specific flock, it's "the sheep).  When you "watch TV" or "listen to
> radio", it's the medium in general, when "the" is inserted, your attention
> is on a specific unit, generally the only one in the house or the room or
> that you have with you.
>
>   
In my dialect of English, one simply does not watch "the TV," and one 
simply does not listen to "radio." That's all there is to it.

My grandparents used to talk about "watching the TV," but even as a 
small child I recognized that as an archaism.
> > I can imagine that in its early days some people may have referred to it
> > as "the Usenet," but by now usage has settled on simply "Usenet." I don't
> > think I've ever heard or seen anyone refer to "the Usenet." (Except maybe
> > in old RFCs?) My two cents.
> >     
>
> Similarly to above, "the Internet" refers to the single collective whole,
> "the internet" not capitalized, would refer to any of a group of networks
> linked, but not /the/ Internet, which is formally always capitalized. 
> Singular internet, whether capitalized or not, would almost always have
> "the" in front of it, since you are referring to a specific instance,
> either the Internet (the universal one), or the internet (as for instance
> the one linking the individual building networks on a campus).  However,
> one could use "internets" in something like "The Internet is the linking
> of many smaller nets and internets together", without "the" on the plural
> version.
>
>   
Of course, but that's a contrived example and says nothing about the 
capital-I Internet, which is always used with the definite article.
> The problem with "the Usenet" is I believe because it's not homogeneous
> enough to be considered a single entity -- it's always the medium.  There
> are Usenet servers, but there is no "the Usenet", as it would be just a
> nebulous "Usenet" or referring to a specific group of servers as "the
> group of Usenet servers" (or "those Usenet servers").  It's interesting, I
> can't think of another medium where there's never an individual piece that
> is never referred to as "the X".
>   
---- (I screwed up the quoting and Thunderbird won't let me fix it....)
> There's a site I discovered recently, called "Language Log".  It's a
> number of linguists blogging about interesting words and usages they come
> across, how usage changes, etc.  Extremely fascinating stuff, at least to
> me.  The first time I stumbled upon it (after reading that "tow the line"
> was incorrect, it was "toe the line, googling it to see what others had to
> say, with one hit being Language Log, "toe the line" is correct, BTW,
> google it if you doubt me), I couldn't tear myself away for something like
> two hours, reading one interesting tidbit after another.  I now have their
> RSS feed scrolling along with all my regular news and technology sites in
> knewsticker.  I wonder if they have a writeup on "Usenet".  I'll have to
> look, one of these days.  It'd be very interesting to see what the
> linguists think of its usage!  BTW, the content is licensed Creative
> Commons, Attribution-ShareAlike (BY-SA). =8^)
>
> Language Log (The URL's kinda weird, definitely not something easy to
> remember, so be sure and bookmark it if you find it anywhere close to as
> interesting as I do!):
>
> http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/
>
> The rss/rdf feed:
> http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/index.rdf
>
>   

Two tidbits like this that I recently wrote about on my own blog:

(1) You can't backup something, and you can't login to something. The 
verbs are "back up" and "log in." The proof is that you don't say you're 
backuping, and you don't say you've just loginned.

(2) You can't replace A by B. B can be replaced by A (which is simply 
the passive form of "A replaces B"), but if a third party is doing the 
replacing, the correct preposition is "with." You replace A *with* B.

All of which is only the tip of a very large iceberg of linguistic 
irritation. ("Tow the line," for example, has been annoying me for years.)

Best,
Tim