Pet Peeves of your native language

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fresh_42 said:
I think one answers "How are you" and the other one "How you're doing" or "How do you do".
If you reply with one of these, you haven't answered the question "How are you?"
The point of @atyy's comment was the grammatical correctness or incorrectness of the response "I'm good."
 
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fresh_42 said:
Yes, but "How are you" requests an adjective, whereas "How do you do" or "How are you doing" requests an adverb.
But that wasn't the point of @atyy's comment, which was strictly about the question "How are you?"
 
non-linear, nonlinear either are acceptable
non linear but not this ('non' cannot stand on its own)

non-negative correct
nonnegative no, the hyphen is needed to avoid the "nn"
non negative no, 'non' cannot stand on its own

semi-simple preferred
semisimple ok, particlarly as this is a technical term so it only exists through its definition, however prefixes with more than one syllable are usually hyphenated otherwise they become difficult to parse e.g. miscible = can be mixed; immiscible = cannot be mixed; something that could be part-mixed could be called semi-miscible but if I wrote it semimiscible you would have to read it three times to work out what I meant.
or semi simple no, again semi- is a prefix so cannot stand on its own

eigen + value/vector/space/function? - ah, this is the exception that proves the rule: always eigenvalue, eigenvector, eigenspace and eigenfunction! This is presumably partly because they are technical terms, partly because phonetically eigenanything is quite easy to parse and pronounce, but probably mainly in homage to its unadulterated German origin, which I am sure you will appreciate!

Is it a water wave, a water-wave or a waterwave, or none of them and a wave of/in/on water?
A water wave is a wave of water in the same way that an apple pie is a pie containing apple (but if you make it in the right way it could be Apfelstrudel).

And why is it a quarterback, but a wide_receiver; a halfback or tailback, but a running_back? Because once you cross the Atlantic you lose all hope of linguistic logic and consistency 😄
 
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fresh_42 said:
I don't get it. If the answer to "How are you?" is an adjective, then "I am good!" is a valid and correct answer, ergo nothing to object, ergo what has been the subject of @atyy's post.
It's not about adjectives or adverbs -- it's about the meaning of good vs. well.
"I am good" implies that I am not evil.
"I am well" implies that I am not suffering from any disease or ailment.
 
Mark44 said:
It's not about adjectives or adverbs -- it's about the meaning of good vs. well.
"I am good" implies that I am not evil.
"I am well" implies that I am not suffering from any disease or ailment.
I understood this. I was just saying that "How are you?" is interpreted as "How are you doing?" An answer to the former is "I am not evil." whereas an answer to the latter requires an adverb. It is the faulty question which I have objections to. It is about the question, which provokes a seemingly false answer which actually is perfectly correct, and only the lack of precision in the question makes the answer look incorrect whereas it actually is correct.
 
Orodruin said:
Not necessarily. It can also refer to a skill that may be subtextual (although this most often is not going to be the case).
I disagree. If the question is "How are you?" and there is no additional context about skills or abilities, then it's a leap to consider that a response of "I am good" is about skills.
 
fresh_42 said:
I understood this. I was just saying that "How are you?" is interpreted as "How are you doing?" An answer to the former is "I am not evil." whereas an answer to the latter requires an adverb.
Right, one could interpret the question as you have done, but that's not the point. We're talking about the question as it is asked.
fresh_42 said:
It is the faulty question which I have objections to.
How is the question faulty?
fresh_42 said:
It is about the question, which provokes a seemingly false answer which actually is perfectly correct, and only the lack of precision in the question makes the answer look incorrect whereas it actually is correct.
You're overthinking this, I believe. Consider the question exactly as it is asked, not as some interpretation that isn't an exact parallel to the semantic meaning of "How are you?" This is similar to the difference between "What are you?" vs. "What are you doing?"
 
Mark44 said:
I disagree. If the question is "How are you?" and there is no additional context about skills or abilities, then it's a leap to consider that a response of "I am good" is about skills.
I think 'feeling' is implied and therefore missed out.
Good has more than one meaning in this context whereas well has only one.
 
Mark44 said:
I disagree. If the question is "How are you?" and there is no additional context about skills or abilities, then it's a leap to consider that a response of "I am good" is about skills.
You may disagree all you want. The leap is not so large that it cannot be considered as at least a possibility, even if it most likely not to be the case in most situations - which is what I was saying. In addition, context can also be non-verbal.
 
What I wrote in post #69, with added emphasis:
Mark44 said:
If the question is "How are you?" and there is no additional context about skills or abilities, then it's a leap to consider that a response of "I am good" is about skills.
Orodruin said:
The leap is not so large that it cannot be considered as at least a possibility, even if it most likely not to be the case in most situations - which is what I was saying. In addition, context can also be non-verbal.
I specifically said no additional context, which would preclude nonverbal cues. Again, if someone walks up to you and asks, "How are you?" I maintain that the chances of them inquiring about your abilities is vanishingly small. In that sense, it's a leap to interpret the question "How are you?" as anything other than your state at the moment.
 
"How are you?" is an interesting one.
Literally, it is an inquiry about the person's current status, conditions, health, feelings. Depending on the way it is used, such as maybe addressing the person by name, it can be intended as "Hello", or "hello and tell me what is happening or how things are happening for you this day." A typical response is "Fine".
 
symbolipoint said:
Posts #69 through 71:
Is this about "pet peeves" of our native language (in this case, English), or about how logic is or is not applied to some phrases or common questions?
The thread went astray with this question in post #58.
atyy said:
You are probably one of those who would object to "How are you?" "I'm good".
 
Mark44 said:
The thread went astray with this question in post #58.
I don't think it is astray. It is about an unspoken complement "doing, feeling" which in reverse affects the answer. Without it the question asks for a property, which is an adjective, with it, imagined or outspoken, the question asks for an adverb. However, the unspoken part is almost always assumed, which makes the correct answer seem wrong whereas it is not. This is about one of many imprecisions of language as a whole. And as such, subject to the thread.

As I closed a thread about infinity yesterday, I recognized another lack of precision. Infinite as a variety of cardinalities can be seen as opposite of finte, whereas infinite in the sense of beyond all borders has nothing to do with cardinalities.

Hence a discussion about the pet peeves of a language is in my opinion always a discussion of ambiguities, too; very likely in any language. How long did it take us to settle the meaning of the word set?
symbolipoint said:
Is this about "pet peeves" of our native language
In this case, it is the fact that people far too often use the english apostrophe for genitives. We do not use it that way. In fact an apostrophe usually marks an elision, but never a genitive.
 
fresh_42 said:
Without it the question asks for a property, which is an adjective, with it, imagined or outspoken, the question asks for an adverb. However, the unspoken part is almost always assumed, which makes the correct answer seem wrong whereas it is not. This is about one of many imprecisions of language as a whole. And as such, subject to the thread.
Are you thinking that "good" is an adjective and "well" is exclusively an adverb? The latter is not true.
Again, as responses to the question "How are you?", "I am fine" and "I am well" are both correct, but have different meanings. The point that @atyy was making in post #58 was about the distinction between these two responses.
 
Orodruin said:
And I specifically said that things may be subtextual, which would include non-verbal clues.
The scenario that I described and quoted, specifies that there are no contextual clues of any kind - overt, subtextual, ESP, whatever.
 
Mark44 said:
The scenario that I described and quoted, specifies that there are no contextual clues of any kind - overt, subtextual, ESP, whatever.
But what @fresh_42 was talking about was not that. It was whether or not it would be grammatically correct or not, which it is. Whether or not it has a relevant meaning in the context is not relevant.
 
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What intrigues me in English is why you speakers (I don't consider myself one) frequently don't use only the verb, but have "up, down" etc in front of them. For example, why

- the events leading up to the war, instead of just the events leading to the war
- the bird ended up free, instead of just the bird ended free

I once even asked @PeterDonis via private message if I should use "write out" or "write down" in a PF thread.
 
fresh_42 said:
would even say that "How are you?" - "Well." is wrong as "Quickly." would be wrong.
"Well" is the grammatically correct answer. This is exactly what atyy was talking about almost 30 posts back.
 
Mark44 said:
"Well" is the grammatically correct answer. This is exactly what atyy was talking about almost 30 posts back.
I am not convinced. An answer: "I am well". looks wrong. Well what? Well done?
"I am quick." is correct, "I am quickly." is not. So it all comes down to whether "well" might be used non adverbial. The examples in Webster all have an elision or are directly adverbial as in "our garden looks well". This is not an adjective here and Webster isn't right: The garden either looks good, or pleases the eye, in which case well refers to how it looks and not how it is.
 
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fresh_42 said:
I am not convinced.
I guess it takes a lot to convince you, but then you are not a native speaker of English.
fresh_42 said:
"I am well". looks wrong. Well what? Well done?
But it is correct. "Well" here is an adjective that describes the subject, "I".
fresh_42 said:
The examples in Webster all have an elision or are directly adverbial as in "our garden looks well".
No, not so. From the same page: "he's not a well man" and "the wound is nearly well". In both cases the adjective "well" modifies the subject.
 
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Another peeve that is back on topic is its vs. it's. English is very inconsistent on these two words. We typically use 's to indicate ownership, as in "the dog's bone," but we write "the dog ate its bone."

OTOH, it's is shorthand for "it is."
I would guess that at least 1/3 of native English speakers get this wrong.
 

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