The Innovative Usage Thread

[Viktor77]

This is more a question than an innovative usage, but anyway, today I was discussing 'les gars' in French and I began to wonder to myself, in English can we use 'guys' as in 'guys! guys! listen up!' among a group of only women?

[alynnidalar]

I can, at least.

[Porphyrogenitos]

I've personally witnessed it on a number of occasions.

[Zaarin]

This is more a question than an innovative usage, but anyway, today I was discussing 'les gars' in French and I began to wonder to myself, in English can we use 'guys' as in 'guys! guys! listen up!' among a group of only women?

I thought I posted here, but I guess not. Yes, in any dialect where "you guys" is the plural form of you--such as mine. I have a friend from Boston who moved to Atlanta; her female classmates were perplexed by this usage. Perfectly normal in most GenAm dialects, though.

[jal]

I've heard it more than once in movies or TV series. In Dutch, we have something similar, where you can use "jongens" (litt. "boys") as a vocative to refer to any group of people (well, it's used esp. when talking to children or friends, but could be used amongst collegues), even if it's 100% female.

As far as innovative usage goes, Dutch has had a semantic shift of the word "vervelend" (litt. "boring", still present in the verb "zich vervelen", "to be bored") to "annoying" somewhere in the past 50 years. The current word for "boring" is "saai". Recently, my oldest daughter used "saai" to mean "annoying", so if that sticks, history is repeating itself (though I don't know what the new word for "boring" will be).


JAL

[Vijay]

Here, I think it's pretty common to hear people say "what can I do you for?" to mean 'what can I do for you?'. How many ZBBers are familiar with that usage? Do you hear it in person?

[Yng]

Sounds perfectly normal to me, albeit the kind of language I associate with middle aged men who make dad jokes.

[Zaarin]

Sounds perfectly normal to me, albeit the kind of language I associate with middle aged men who make dad jokes.

Same, except I'd qualify middle aged+ men from the Northeast.

[spanick]

Here, I think it's pretty common to hear people say "what can I do you for?" to mean 'what can I do for you?'. How many ZBBers are familiar with that usage? Do you hear it in person?

I have heard this person and I have used it. But it seems dated. I can't put my finger on how it's used. Not quite ironically but also quite aware of its markedness.

[Vijay]

I honestly think this is the first time I personally have ever seen "rather" used as a verb:

The party's opponents rathered to deal with Adams than Hamilton.

[clawgrip]

I have heard "What can I do you for?" but as was mentioned, it's always said in a lighthearted way and is meant as a joke or to be informal and friendly.

[Porphyrogenitos]

I honestly think this is the first time I personally have ever seen "rather" used as a verb:

The party's opponents rathered to deal with Adams than Hamilton.

A pretty common phenomenon - and dating back centuries, apparently. I think it's a very odd but very interesting example of syntactic change. The linked article doesn't discuss the actual process of change directly, but I looked at the Wiktionary entry for rather, and as far as I can surmise, it must have happened like this:

People create sentences using the past/subjunctive form of "will" as the main verb: I would he were here.

People insert adverbs into such sentences: I would sooner he were here. or I would rather he were here. (rather originally meant sooner)

The past/subjunctive of will becomes obsolete as an independent verb, but it survives in the set phrase I would rather...

People reanalyze would as an auxiliary verb and rather as the main verb, but it still does not have all the properties of a main verb (can't take affixes, etc). I think that there are many, many English speakers who are at this stage. Is there anyone for whom the following isn't grammatical?

I'd rather he be here. (Contracting would shows that it is an auxiliary modifying rather, since you can't contract main verbs - e.g. the sentence God wills it can't be contracted to God'll it, but the sentence God will make it can be contracted to God'll make it.)

And in the last stage, rather takes on most of the characteristic of a regular verb, including the ability to take affixes, but also has many unique properties of its own as described on the Yale Grammatical Diversity page. E.g. a person might say I would have rathered that he be here, but he didn't come. or She rathers that he be here.

Is there anyone familiar with Early Modern English or English syntax that can comment on this theory?

[Sumelic]

People create sentences using the past/subjunctive form of "will" as the main verb: I would he were here.

People insert adverbs into such sentences: I would sooner he were here. or I would rather he were here. (rather originally meant sooner)

The past/subjunctive of will becomes obsolete as an independent verb, but it survives in the set phrase I would rather...

People reanalyze would as an auxiliary verb and rather as the main verb, but it still does not have all the properties of a main verb (can't take affixes, etc). I think that there are many, many English speakers who are at this stage. Is there anyone for whom the following isn't grammatical?

I'd rather he be here. (Contracting would shows that it is an auxiliary modifying rather, since you can't contract main verbs - e.g. the sentence God wills it can't be contracted to God'll it, but the sentence God will make it can be contracted to God'll make it.)

I don't think I normally use "I would rather" followed by a subjunctive clause. It doesn't strike me as ungrammatical, but it seems somewhat archaic in the same way as "I would he were here" (although not to the same degree). For me, "I would rather" is most commonly followed by a plain infinitive. If I'm taking about someone else, I feel like I'd be more likely to say something like "I'd rather have Jane go to the store" than "I'd rather Jane go to the store." I guess there are some common expressions I might use where it is followed by a clause, like "I'd rather you didn't."

[Travis B.]

The normal usage in my dialect is would rather followed by a clause in the present subjunctive; e.g. "I would rather he eat his vegetables for once".

[Salmoneus]

Three new brexit-related words encountered today: wrexit, bremainer, and brexiteer.

[gach]

Relevant: https://youtu.be/lcDGkuvqqWE?t=18m10s

And if you do end up voting to oust yourselves, we have to keep hearing those same awful words for an even longer while.

[Viktor77]

Does "the Eurovision" grate anyone else's ears? The presenters kept saying this here in Sweden even though their English was otherwise basically flawless and I can't tell if it's an error or if this form is considered acceptable? Because for me it has to be without an article except in the long form "the Eurovision Song Contest."

[Vijay]

Does "the Eurovision" grate anyone else's ears?

Yes.

[Pole, the]

What is wrong with “the Eurovision”?

[Sumelic]

What is wrong with “the Eurovision”?

The definite article.

[Pole, the]

Yeah, but why?

[KathTheDragon]

Same reason why you can't say "The Germany" or "The London" or "The Microsoft"

[jmcd]

It doesn't bother me (see 24th minute mark).

[gmalivuk]

Both "Eurovision" and "the Eurovision Song Contest" are fine for me, but "the Eurovision" indeed seems wrong. The way I'd explain it is that it sounds like a compound, and we don't usually use "the" in proper noun phrases or compounds unless the head is a common noun, but it's a kind of contest, not a kind of vision.

[Salmoneus]

"Eurovision" is a name. Names don't get articles. [with the possible exception of one or two countries, but that's a confusing area - is it Gambia, the Gambia, or The Gambia? Technically, the legal situation is that the second is preferred, but I think that's the least likely to actually be found these days; and even there you could argue that it's an abbreviation for "(The Islamic Republic of) the Gambia", i.e. the republic on the Gambia river.]

[also with the exception, as that demonstrates, of names of geographical entities. In most cases, this occurs when there is an elided common noun: "the Gobi (Desert)", "the Atlantic (Ocean)", "the Stelvio (Pass)"; in the case of rivers in Europe, and a few of historical significance, the expanded form may have inversion: "the (River) Thames", "the (River) Danube"; but "the Mississippi (River)", "the Yangtze (River)"; the Nile is an ambiguous case, as it's normally "the (River) Nile" in common speech, but you sometimes see "the Nile (River)" in more technical contexts. Another exception is mountain ranges suffixed with -s, even when there's no implicit common noun: the Alps, the Himalayas, the Andes, the Cairngorms, the Pennines. [never "the Alps Mountains"].

[also: individual mountains in the alps when the word 'Mont' or 'Monte' is not present. So "Scafell", "Everest", "Mont Blanc", "Kilimanjaro", but "the Matterhorn", "the Eiger", "the Dom", "the Ailefroide", etc.]