Re: off topic: Grammer Question

[Leslie Bialler lb136@xxxxxxxx]

Patricia M Godfrey wrote:

> Good for your mother. Is there ever a need (I've taught courses to
> "experienced editors" who didn't know a relative from a personal
> pronoun).
Well, I certainly can distinguish my aunt from a personal pronoun--nine
times out of ten anyhow.


> Order of adjectives is often a matter of idiom: the (often arbitrary)
> traits peculiar to a given language. There are sometimes patterns that
> can be cited; for example, color adjectives usually come closest to the
> noun: "big green door, small white house, large blue shutters; large,
> fragrant, pale yellow flowers; small, sharp, black spines."
Quite so. Because color is usually what viewers will notice first. They
look for the green door, and then evaluate its bigness (or lack
thereof). Etc.


> Contrast
> this with French, where, I'm told (only had 2 years of it, in high
> school, some 50 years ago) not merely are "le cordon bleu" and "le bleu
> cordon" both possible, but that pair have passed into proverb as the
> French equivalent of English "six of one, half-dozen of the other."

Zut Alors!

> On the other hand, Flash cites
> "the green wooden door"
> And that is idiomatic. In so far as there is a principle, it would seem
> to be that the adjective denoting the quality most intrinsic to the noun
> comes closest (anybody else remember substance and the nine accidents
> from Aristotle's Categories)? Size is least essential, color
> moderately, composition most. But idiom is never logical, leat of all in
> English. It's just the done thing.
There! That's what I was talking about. When you're emphasizing "green"
doors, put green before the door (and don't let the doorknob hit it on
the way out either). When you're emphasizing big doors (i.e., when
perhaps there is a green door and a red door of equal hugeness), then
put the "big" next to the door (and hope it doesn't have to duck).


. . . .

> Idiom is not something that, IMO, can be taught: it can only be picked up
> from reading and hearing good English (or any other language).
Of course. I believe it was Bernstein who advocated out "idiom over
anology."


> Grammar
> (in the strict sense; i.e., rules of concord, formation and sequence of
> tenses, case formation and use) can be taught, since there are rules,
> exceptions to the rules (lots of them in English), and a certain logic.
> Syntax, idiom, semantics, orthography (spelling)--which along with
> etymology are often classed as "grammar" in a wider sense--pretty much
> have to be learned by ear, though there are a few rules of English
> spelling ("i before e except after c or when sounded as ay as in neighbor
> and weigh"). (Etymology is a matter of fact, though the facts can
> sometimes be controverted.)
The problem is (and maybe it was Bernstein who pointed this out as
well), in English syntax is more important than in the Romance
languages, which come to think of it is precisely why we are having this
discussion.


--
Leslie Bialler, Columbia University Press
lb136@xxxxxxxx
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