"Of" and "have"

[Robert]

Jeff, they do sing "Route 66" over there, don't they, and not "Rout 66"?

[Mayerling]

My father was a linguist, so I picked up some points from him. One that I have never been able to shake, but which I have given up on was the word, "route", as in the travel passageway used by a pedestrian or driver to get from point "A" to point "B". It is also used to describe portions of a highway syster, and the famous "Route 66" which is a long highway out in the western portion of the U.S. (and subsequently a show about two young guys driving along it, and the people they meet in the towns along the way).

The problem is that it is constantly pronounced as "rout" in this country, even by educated people. As my father (who hated this confusion) would have said, "A "rout" is a defeat, in military or non-military but somewhat serious circumstances, a total defeat." "Route", which is a word from the French, is pronounced like the homenym "root" meaning the underlying portion of a planted vegetable in the ground, through which the vegetable gets it's nourishment. It is also the under portion of a tooth, so that when the tooth is weakened and rotten we require "root canal".

There is no problem to Americans to pronouncing "root" correctly, as it rhymes with "toot" or "boot" but it also does not really rhyme with "soot", which softens the "oo" combination to come out like "suht". Interestingly, Americans have no problem with "suit", meaning a man or woman's dress clothes usually for desk jobs or formal occasions. That does rhyme with "root" or (as originally pronounced) "route". Americans have yet to start confusing "suit" with "suite", a set of rooms in an apartment house, co-op, condominium, motel, or hotel. But give them time. "Suite" may also eventually get confused by my countrymen with "sweet" which sounds the same but relates to a pleasant flavor in items like cookies or ice cream or pie.

I too try to stick to the proper pronounciation of "route", but when I was in college I found many friends and intelligent people pronouncing it "rout". When I tried to correct this, they would say "Same difference". So much for pronunciation in the educated classes. Today I just grit my teeth quietly and accept "rout" as the pronunciation favored here. It has even gotten into our dictionaries.

Jeff

[johns]

Some interesting stuff here. Thanks.

My own personal explanation is the same as a Phil H... People write what they hear meaning some folks use "of" because "could've" sounds like "could of" rather than "could have".

I'm off now to of myself a beer or 2.

[RivkahChaya]

OK. I'm up for it, 'cause I got a lot of 'em.

Can I start with "relatable"? This is not a word. People use it to mean "A story line, or character in a story, to which a person can easily relate, or with which people can identify.

For one thing, the stem is wrong. Relate just shouldn't take -able. For another, "to relate" is an intransitive verb, and verbs that take -able are transitive. I have heard people use "relate" in the sense of "tell" without a preposition, but I don't think that's technically correct, and at any rate, that's not the meaning that people are going for when they talk about a character in a movie being "relatable."

Finally, there are plenty of words that mean what the speaker wants the non-word "relatable" to mean, but some people are to lazy to go look up a real word, or converse with people who might know things, or read books that do something besides reinforce their present limited experience, so they don't learn any new words once they stop watching Sesame Street, and just slice and dice old ones to come up with monstrosities like "relatable."

Try telling someone unfamiliar with the word, that something is "apposite." The fact that they may not know the word isn't bad, but the fact that because it sounds like "opposite," they may insist it must mean something similar, and you can't tell them any different, even if you look it up, is bad. It's how Senators don't get re-elected, and mayoral aides get fired, because people don't know what the word "*****rdly" means, even after you show them a dictionary, and the place in The Canterbury Tales where Chaucer uses it.

There was a funny TV commercial in the US, that was really great until the last line, and I guess enough people emailed the company, because it got pulled. It was a commercial for a credit card company, and how the owners of a huge Newfoundland used the reward points on their card to pay for his food (they're shown buying five bags of dog food at once), and many of the other large things he needs. It's very funny-- they paid for the gas when they drove out to get him when he was a tiny puppy, when they should have had a clue, because we see his mother in the background.

Then the commercial in the very end mentions something about the "enormity" of the situation. Oops.

[Ayailla]

If this thread is descending into general linguistic bugbears, may I present something that I have seen a lot in American TV that bugs the crap out of me.

"The problem is is that..."

The double is. People emphasise the first one, "The problem IS" and then feel the need to repeat it. I don't understand why people do it, but I have seen it a lot. "The problem IS is that..."

It drives me up the wall!

[kensei]

How about "a whole 'nother"?

When Stewie on "Family Guy" once imagined himself as dictator of America I think he declared that anyone who said that particular phrase needed to go to jail or something like that.

[Phil H]

On "status quo" Rivkah, I drew my information from US TV series.

On your ability to understand and spell, I don't doubt it, your intellectual power shines out in every post you write, you are evidently educated, erudite, well-read and exceptionally widely informed.

I too can relate to Shakespeare, understand how he uses words to fit the metre etc; If writing fiction, I can deliberately mis-spell words to suggest brogue or accent, or the way a word can be used by someone ill-educated.

In writing:

I don't know how someone who does not ennunciate clearly or pronounce words properly CAN learn to spell, since the sound he/she hears, and how it is spelled must seem out of kilter!

I was thinking of those who come from a background which contains few, if any books in the home, in which they are not encouraged to read outside school and where a regional accent - in the UK, for instance, Scouse (Liverpool) or Geordie (Newcastle) - is used in the home with all the ellisions and rythmns of speach that might entail. Perhaps I did not specifically mention that and should have done.

Phil

[RivkahChaya]

I don't know how someone who does not ennunciate clearly or pronounce words properly CAN learn to spell, since the sound he/she hears, and how it is spelled must seem out of kilter!

I can use "dost" and "doth" correctly in writing if I need to, even though I never speak them. I can spell and correctly use a lot of words I've seen and never heard.

Language changes. Americans seem to use the phrase "status quo" as in "all is status quo" to mean all is OK or alright/as it should be.

I don't know an American who uses it this way, but it may be something young people use the way you describe. Literally, it means "The state which," so it's incomplete, as a Latin phrase. I don't think it was ever used in Classical Latin, and really only dates back a few hundred years, to the phrase "status quo ante bellum," or "the way things were before the war," which gets used figuratively all the time. There's a legal term "status quo ante litem," and has something to do with the expiration of temporary restraining orders, and other temporary orders, like powers of attorney.

If people are misunderstanding "quo" as an adjective that means "normal," ie, "status is quo," then they would be misusing the phrase, but if saying "status quo" to mean "things are OK" is a shorthand way of saying that "nothing has changed since the last time you asked, when things were also just fine," it makes sense to me.

Its proper use is, as I understand it: as it was - the position beforehand. But then, UK and America are two countries separated by a single language, are they not?

"The position before" is "status quo ante."

Heres complete confusion if you so like. The text ,spelling is weird but the message gets through anyhow. [see post]

It's too often that there are ambiguities. When there aren't, you're fine, but go read the "Johnto/John too" thread. Or, punctuate this: "Woman without her man is nothing."

[Smoking Joe]

Supe,
Im guessing they would protest a little. But it's surprising how easily that garbled prose is read.

Regards

[Wickerman]

7H15 M3554G3
53RV35 7O PROV3
HOW OUR MINDS C4N
DO 4M4ZING 7HING5
1MPR3551V3 7HING5
1N 7H3 B3G1NN1NG
17 WA5 H4RD BU7
NOW ON 7H15 LIN3
YOUR M1ND 1S
R34D1NG 17
W17H OU7 3V3N
7HINK1NG 4BOU7 17
B3 PROUD ONLY
C3R741N P3OPL3 C4N
R3AD 7H15

Now I don't feel so bad about my occasional spelling faux pas.

[Supe]

Joe,

makes one wonder if correct spelling really matters .

Just ask the relevant Cambridge researchers who did the study if they would accept, say, a doctoral thesis written in the garbled prose they champion as being quite understandable.

Don.

[Smoking Joe]

Heres complete confusion if you so like. The text ,spelling is weird but the message
gets through anyhow.Strange how the Brain trans;lates words.

7H15 M3554G3
53RV35 7O PROV3
HOW OUR MINDS C4N
DO 4M4ZING 7HING5
1MPR3551V3 7HING5
1N 7H3 B3G1NN1NG
17 WA5 H4RD BU7
NOW ON 7H15 LIN3
YOUR M1ND 1S
R34D1NG 17
W17H OU7 3V3N
7HINK1NG 4BOU7 17
B3 PROUD ONLY
C3R741N P3OPL3 C4N
R3AD 7H15

According to a research er at cambridge university it doesnt matter whsat the letters in a word are,or how its spelt,only that the first and last letter be in the right place....apostrophes, commas full stops the same .Whatever the resultant mess it will still be read without any problem,because the human mind doesnt read each letter individually.....makes one wonder if correct spelling really matters .Im not sure if Im totally convinced

[Supe]

I notice that on many British sports message boards that the "could of" solecism is quite prevalent whereas the American pronunciation seems more "coulda" than "could of."

When I was teaching in the 70s I first noticed an occasional "alot" for a lot and just considered it an abberation. Now, though, it seems pandemic. Much like a couple hundred years ago per centum was standard. Then it became per cent. (note period), then just per cent and finally percent.

My current bugbear is the double conditional "If I would have . . ." (or "would of") rather than the single conditional "If I had . . ." I wonder, is a double conditional like a double negative and yields the opposite of what the writer intended?

Don.

[Robert]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPgo6s1lBbw

[Ally]

I am sure that you all are aware of how this misuse arose, but consider non-native speakers or just barely literate people who hear us speak and then try to match that to the written word. "I could've done that if ..." " I should've done that...". Most people will come to think the correct translation is "I could of".

I have many memories as a child of those "aha!" moments when the words on the page finally caught up to the words I heard or vice versa. I think I was in high school before I realized awry was not pronounced aw-ree even though I'd been saying "uh- rye" for years. For some reason the spelling/phonetic connection was never made with those two words for me. Because English does not sound like it's spelled and half our words break our own rules. Having had to teach Deaf kids for years who are taught k makes a 'k' sound for pronouncing (though they can't hear it) and then try to explain to them why they wouldn't pronounce k-nife when they are trying to read it.

English makey no sensey.


(P.S I suck at phonetic spelling so deal.)