The Innovative Usage Thread

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Travis B.
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Re: The Innovative Usage Thread

Post by Travis B. »

For me have to is /ˈ(h)æftu/ [ˈ(h)ɛftʲʉ̯u(ː)]~/ˈ(h)æftə/ [ˈ(h)ɛftə(ː)], which contrasts with have two /ˈ(h)ævˈtu/ [ˈ(h)ɛːfˈtʲʰʉ̯u(ː)].

Had to does not have anything special going on with it, being /ˈ(h)ædtu/ [ˈ(h)ɛːtʲːʉ̯u(ː)]~/ˈ(h)ædtə/ [ˈ(h)ɛːtːə(ː)]. This contrasts with had two /ˈ(h)ædˈtu/ [ˈ(h)ɛːtʲˈtʲʰʉ̯u(ː)] only because of the stress difference and its effect on aspiration. Note that /dt/ is distinguished from /tt/ by a lack of preglottalization and a long preceding vowel.
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Re: The Innovative Usage Thread

Post by zompist »

Apologies if this has been posted before, but it's new to me. There's a site, n-gate.com, which provides an extremely snarky weekly digest of discussions at Hacker News. And they've come up with a hilarious metonymy: for "a <site> user" they just write "<site>".
n-gate wrote:An internet claims they're "linking to" a lockpicking guide "for educational purposes", then proceeds to host the document in its entirety. Hackernews decides that locks aren't enough, and in fact walls aren't enough. Some Hackernews bikeshed OCR, document typesetting, and file formats. One Hackernews keeps getting his shit stolen at the gym. Hackernews advises him to use a better lock, don't use a better lock, carry a safe around, leave all his shit at home, hire a security guard, or leave all his shit in his car.

gmalivuk
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Re: The Innovative Usage Thread

Post by gmalivuk »

What's "bikeshed"?

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Pole, the
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Re: The Innovative Usage Thread

Post by Pole, the »

"discuss", I suppose.
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Re: The Innovative Usage Thread

Post by linguoboy »

Pole, the wrote:"discuss", I suppose.
More specific than that: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bikeshed

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Re: The Innovative Usage Thread

Post by Viktor77 »

A West Virginian senator on CNN keeps saying "I take it serious" instead of using the adverb "seriously." Is this characteristic of Appalachian English?

He also just said "the goodest country in the world."

It's interesting listening to this guy.
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Zaarin
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Re: The Innovative Usage Thread

Post by Zaarin »

Viktor77 wrote:A West Virginian senator on CNN keeps saying "I take it serious" instead of using the adverb "seriously." Is this characteristic of Appalachian English?
Not just Appalachian English; Southern accents in general, including the use of "good" where one would expect "well" (e.g., "Y'all done good" instead of "You did well"). Adjective-for-adverb substitution is a feature I've observed to stick around in Southern English even in registers that are otherwise closer to standard, however.
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KathTheDragon
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Re: The Innovative Usage Thread

Post by KathTheDragon »

It's also (afaict) becoming commonplace in England; I've noticed it in the speech of my younger brother and his friends.

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Re: The Innovative Usage Thread

Post by linguoboy »

Viktor77 wrote:A West Virginian senator on CNN keeps saying "I take it serious" instead of using the adverb "seriously." Is this characteristic of Appalachian English?
I could probably find similar examples from my own casual speech.

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Re: The Innovative Usage Thread

Post by Viktor77 »

Adjective/adverb replacement is common in my own speech. I often catch myself saying 'good' for 'well' or 'bad' for 'badly.' But I don't think I've ever extended it to other adjectives such as 'serious.' Is there a limit to the replacement? Can it be done for long adverbs? For example, "He did it different than you'd think".*

*Ok, now I am really unsure that this is truly marked for me. While this sentence appears marked to me, I'd likely say "He made it separate from the others" where 'separate' replaces 'separately.'
Last edited by Viktor77 on Mon May 22, 2017 10:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Innovative Usage Thread

Post by Vijay »

Viktor77 wrote:Is there a limit to the replacement?
Can't think of one
Can it be done for long adverbs? For example, "He did it different than you'd think".*
Yep.

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Re: The Innovative Usage Thread

Post by Viktor77 »

Did Old English take the adverb ending -līce from Old Norse? And now Modern English is dropping this Old Norse innovation?
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Re: The Innovative Usage Thread

Post by Vijay »

Nah, I think it just happened to be a development that was similar to Old Norse (although I'm no expert on the history of English).

As for why people would merge adverbs and adjectives, well, IIRC it's cross-linguistically more unusual for a language to have adverbs than to have adjectives (and more unusual to have those than just nouns and verbs).

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Re: The Innovative Usage Thread

Post by jal »

Viktor77 wrote:Did Old English take the adverb ending -līce from Old Norse?
Really Vik, sometimes you should just Google :).


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Re: The Innovative Usage Thread

Post by Viktor77 »

jal wrote:
Viktor77 wrote:Did Old English take the adverb ending -līce from Old Norse?
Really Vik, sometimes you should just Google :).


JAL
I did, actually. I didn't expect etymonline would have -ly in their database so it didn't occur to me to look there.
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Re: The Innovative Usage Thread

Post by jal »

Viktor77 wrote:I did, actually. I didn't expect etymonline would have -ly in their database so it didn't occur to me to look there.
Yeah, etymonline has common prefixes and suffixes as well. Quite handy!


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Re: The Innovative Usage Thread

Post by linguoboy »

jal wrote:
Viktor77 wrote:I did, actually. I didn't expect etymonline would have -ly in their database so it didn't occur to me to look there.
Yeah, etymonline has common prefixes and suffixes as well. Quite handy!
As does Wiktionary.

The development of adverbial marking in Germanic is interesting. There seems to be a certain correlation between loss of adjective inflection and the spread of explicitly adverbial suffixes. The latter were rare in Standard German until very recently, for instance.
Vijay wrote:
Viktor77 wrote:Is there a limit to the replacement?
Can't think of one
There are fixed phrases or collocations where it would strike me as odd, to say the least.

To my surprise, though, "won it handy" (which I would consider one of these) gets more Ghits than "won it handily". So I may be in the minority here.

ETA: Is there anyone here who would accept "I speak English fluent"?

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Pole, the
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Re: The Innovative Usage Thread

Post by Pole, the »

Zaarin wrote:
Viktor77 wrote:A West Virginian senator on CNN keeps saying "I take it serious" instead of using the adverb "seriously." Is this characteristic of Appalachian English?
Not just Appalachian English; Southern accents in general, including the use of "good" where one would expect "well" (e.g., "Y'all done good" instead of "You did well").
Heh, is Southern American basically becoming the Afrikaans of English?
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Re: The Innovative Usage Thread

Post by Sumelic »

An English adverb that is identical in form to an adjective, rather than an adjective + the "ly" suffix, can be called a "flat" adverb. As others have mentioned, flat adverbs are common in speech, especially colloquial speech, in many areas and my understanding is that they've had some use continuously since before adverbs and adjectives were differentiated, so the existence of adverbs with this form is not exactly innovative. Some uses for some words are considered standard.

I don't know of any native-spoken variety of English where "ly" adverbs seem to be on a clear path to disappearing entirely. I don't think I've ever heard "it's entire different" for "it's entirely different," for example. I can't think of the exact conditions right now, but I think there's something like adverbs modifying predicative adjectives are unlikely to be able to be flat, while adverbs modifying verbs/verb phrases are more likely to be able to be flat. Certainly it depends in part on the specific word; "real" is usable as an adverb in any position ("it's real good" is certainly possible and common colloquially).

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Re: The Innovative Usage Thread

Post by linguoboy »

Sumelic wrote:Certainly it depends in part on the specific word; "real" is usable as an adverb in any position ("it's real good" is certainly possible and common colloquially).
Not real.

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Re: The Innovative Usage Thread

Post by Sumelic »

Hmm, yeah, I guess "real" is actually pretty much restricted to modifying adjectives, like "very".

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linguoboy
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Re: The Innovative Usage Thread

Post by linguoboy »

Sumelic wrote:Hmm, yeah, I guess "real" is actually pretty much restricted to modifying adjectives, like "very".
On the other hand, "for real(s)" is ubiquitous.

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Re: The Innovative Usage Thread

Post by Vijay »

linguoboy wrote:ETA: Is there anyone here who would accept "I speak English fluent"?
I could see a fellow South'ner saying that, but I imagine them putting "real" before "fluent." Maybe I could imagine them saying it without "real" if they were being indignant about it, like if they were getting defensive about their accent/dialect.

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Re: The Innovative Usage Thread

Post by Axiem »

linguoboy wrote: On the other hand, "for real(s)" is ubiquitous.
As is "for serious". Okay, maybe not ubiquitous, but still pretty common.

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Re: The Innovative Usage Thread

Post by Pole, the »

linguoboy wrote:
Sumelic wrote:Certainly it depends in part on the specific word; "real" is usable as an adverb in any position ("it's real good" is certainly possible and common colloquially).
Not real.
It feels real, though.
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