The Innovative Usage Thread

[linguoboy]

"My friend Dan, his wife, her car was one of them."

First time I think I've heard this construction with three NPs instead of just two.

[faiuwle]

What does that mean? I can't figure it out.

[Matrix]

I think it means "My friend Dan's wife's car was one of them."

[faiuwle]

Oh, I see now. Thanks.

[alynnidalar]

Heard today, in an explanation of how changes are made to a particular application we use at my work:

"We physically take a copy of the application and move it to the server..."

It struck me as unusual for a minute, but upon reflection I realize that we actually say stuff like this all the time. I wonder if "physically" is going through much the same changes as "literally", at least for those of us in IT... in contexts like this, it appears to be being used as an intensifier, to emphasize how a copy of the code is made and copied to a different server. Obviously there is no physical representation of the application that is moving anywhere, unless you count electrical charges travelling through the network!

(to be being used? Is that grammatical? It felt natural when I wrote it, but now I'm second-guessing myself!)

[HoskhMatriarch]

Once I saw someone put a prepositional phrase after an attributive adjective. I wish I could remember what it was.

[Zaarin]

Heard today, in an explanation of how changes are made to a particular application we use at my work:

"We physically take a copy of the application and move it to the server..."

It struck me as unusual for a minute, but upon reflection I realize that we actually say stuff like this all the time. I wonder if "physically" is going through much the same changes as "literally", at least for those of us in IT... in contexts like this, it appears to be being used as an intensifier, to emphasize how a copy of the code is made and copied to a different server. Obviously there is no physical representation of the application that is moving anywhere, unless you count electrical charges travelling through the network!

(to be being used? Is that grammatical? It felt natural when I wrote it, but now I'm second-guessing myself!)

I'm going to guess this usage is restricted to IT. As a non-IT person hearing that sentence, I would assume a physical copy of the application was involved, or at the very least that the transfer was done in a physical manner (via disks or cards or something).

[linguoboy]

Once I saw someone put a prepositional phrase after an attributive adjective. I wish I could remember what it was.

You mean like "a funny-in-a-stupid-way joke", something like that?

[HoskhMatriarch]

Once I saw someone put a prepositional phrase after an attributive adjective. I wish I could remember what it was.

You mean like "a funny-in-a-stupid-way joke", something like that?

There weren't any hyphens, but I'd have to see it to be able to analyaze it.


I also could have sworn I just heard someone say "Thank the Lort", and I'm pretty sure this person is a native English speaker. I can't say I haven't ever pronounced things in weird ways accidentally before.

[Imralu]

I also could have sworn I just heard someone say "Thank the Lort", and I'm pretty sure this person is a native English speaker. I can't say I haven't ever pronounced things in weird ways accidentally before.

Lort

[gmalivuk]

Devoicing and glottalizing final /d/ is something I've heard in AAVE, and probably isn't unique to that.

[linguoboy]

Today, for the first time, I spotted the plural "magnum opi" in the wild.

*cries*

[Boşkoventi]

Today, for the first time, I spotted the plural "magnum opi" in the wild.

*cries*

lolcat_OhGodWhy.jpg (32.23 KiB) Viewed 3982 times

[Imralu]

Today, for the first time, I spotted the plural "magnum opi" in the wild.

*cries*

It's clearly magnera opera, no?

[KathTheDragon]

Today, for the first time, I spotted the plural "magnum opi" in the wild.

*cries*

It's clearly magnera opera, no?

I thought it was magna opera.

[Imralu]

Today, for the first time, I spotted the plural "magnum opi" in the wild.

*cries*

It's clearly magnera opera, no?

I thought it was magna opera.

I was being silly. Magna opera looks more likely to me.

[schyrsivochter]

"My friend Dan, his wife, her car was one of them."

First time I think I've heard this construction with three NPs instead of just two.

That’s common in some German dialects, too! (Can’t remember which.)

[linguoboy]

"My friend Dan, his wife, her car was one of them."

First time I think I've heard this construction with three NPs instead of just two.

That’s common in some German dialects, too! (Can’t remember which.)

I think of it as particularly characteristic of Rhenish, but really, it's found all over. Still, my impression is that examples with three NPs are rare even in the Rheinland.

A minor one: "other libraries' submittals".

Apparently this usage has been found in the USA since WWII (e.g. "All inquiries and submittals"), but it sounds erroneous enough to me that if I saw it in a draught of a document, I'd change it.

[linguoboy]

Overheard: "She didn't know how long it was going to be too."

[din]

My husband often uses a before a noun or adjective that starts with a vowel, and I caught my mother in law say 'a early birthday present' a little while ago (a few weeks before my birthday, unsurprisingly), and I'm wondering how widespread it is.

My husband denies he does it, but he even does it in informal writing every now and then (like text messages), and I can find plenty of results for people writing like this on Google, and they're also native speakers of English.

[Qxentio]

"My friend Dan, his wife, her car was one of them."

That’s common in some German dialects, too! (Can’t remember which.)

I think of it as particularly characteristic of Rhenish, but really, it's found all over.

Everyone does it who can't be assed to use a genitive. Even though the genitive is much easier and shorter.

[KathTheDragon]

Overheard: "She didn't know how long it was going to be too."

What's innovative about this?

[schyrsivochter]

"My friend Dan, his wife, her car was one of them."

That’s common in some German dialects, too! (Can’t remember which.)

I think of it as particularly characteristic of Rhenish, but really, it's found all over.

Everyone does it who can't be assed to use a genitive. Even though the genitive is much easier and shorter.

Hey, that wasn’t me who said that!

[linguoboy]

Overheard: "She didn't know how long it was going to be too."

What's innovative about this?

"Too" with negatives is unidiomatic IMD. Sentences like this used to be a foolproof way of spotting L2 speakers, but this I heard from a completely fluent presumed native speaker.

Hey, that wasn’t me who said that!

Now you know how it feels!

[KathTheDragon]

Overheard: "She didn't know how long it was going to be too."

What's innovative about this?

"Too" with negatives is unidiomatic IMD. Sentences like this used to be a foolproof way of spotting L2 speakers, but this I heard from a completely fluent presumed native speaker.

Really? It sounds perfectly fine to my ears, and I'm definitely a completely fluent native speaker.