The Innovative Usage Thread

[jal]

Seems perfectly normal to me.

Well, Merriam Webster has only examples of "X alleged that Y (did something)" or passive "Y is alleged to (have done something)". If those are the only possible forms, it must be "alleged to have joined (...)". I think this is a simple blend between that and "accused of joining (...)".


JAL

[Zaarin]

From today's WSJ: "German police have arrested two Germans alleged of joining an Islamist militant group in Syria[.]"

Anyone else find that jarring?

Mildly. "To allege" is a verb I'm most accustomed to seeing used passively or indirectly. On the other hand, it doesn't look too out of place in the minimalist style journalists are so fond of.

[Boşkoventi]

From today's WSJ: "German police have arrested two Germans alleged of joining an Islamist militant group in Syria[.]"

Anyone else find that jarring?

It's wrong. Wrong, I say.

They should either write "alleged to have joined" or "accused of joining".

EDIT:

And to support my claim, I cite the all-knowing Google:

"alleged to" gets 13.6M ghits
"accused of" gets 103M
... and "alleged of" gets a mere 205,000

[ol bofosh]

Now that the exact problem has been pointed out, it does seem a bit weird. But I don't think I've ever used allege, I mostly stick with accuse. I say keep the change, it would just go extinct with me.

[Tropylium]

"Firstable" now a word. *clutches pearls in sympathy*

1) a. Capable of being firsted.
All comments sections are firstable, but most are only firstable once.

2) b. Maintaining a balance among different types of fir.
This ecological zone has seen a rotation of five different dominant species of pine over the last three million years, but has proved quite firstable.

[ol bofosh]

"Campaing"

I think they weren't a native English speaker (Finnish apparently), but from this I realised that I velarise /n/ because of the dipthong preceding it, which seems a step away from /N/ - either percieving it or speaking it.

[jal]

"which seems a step away from /N/

I can imagine that in a language that doesn't have [ɲ] as an allophone of /n/ (I don't know if this includes Finnish), [ɲ] can sound more like a [ŋ] than a [n].


JAL

[Nortaneous]

I'm more curious about linguoboy's use of an apostrophe in "two year's older"!

* years', and that doesn't look wrong to me -- do you put an apostrophe in N Xs worth of Y?

[Salmoneus]

But there's an apostrophe in "two days' worth of food", because the days are what the worth is of (though 'worth' as a noun is archaic outside of that and a few other idioms ('show his worth', for instance)).

Whereas in *"two days' older", there is no genitive involved, not even any noun to be possessed, so no apostrophe.

Compare an instance where there's no phonetic ambiguity, i.e. where the plural doesn't end in -s:
*"he is two feet's taller"
No, "he is two feet taller" - simple plural, non-possessive. And likewise "two years older", not "two years' older".

P.s. gallium aparine has always been robin-run-the-hedge to me.

[gmalivuk]

Overheard yesterday: "She inboxed me."

Seems like ordinary verbing, except that if I'm correct in the interpretation "She sent something to my inbox", it's a pretty audacious applicative derivation.

I'm pretty certain I've heard that before; it doesn't actually sound strange to me.

Something I find myself doing is fusing words I feel should go together: plotline, questline, playthrough, watchthrough, readthrough...And spellcheck has to regularly tell me that "moreso" is not a word. Yes I am an L1 speaker and no I do not speak German. (Though I would like to learn--any language that sees fit to give us out-of-control compounds like "Unabhaengigkeitserklaerungen" is a good language in my book )

I could go either way with noun+noun compounds like "plotline", because "plotline" and "plot line" both obviously mean a type of line having to do with plot. The ones with "through" don't feel like nouns at all when written separately, though. So for example, "three playthroughs" is fine, but "three play throughs" is wrong and "three plays through" sounds wrong or at least archaic.

Fusing them feels necessary to make that particle or preposition or adverb into part of a noun.

[Porphyrogenitos]

The other day I heard someone pronounce "dramatic" as [d͜ʒɚ'mæɾɪk] - making it homophonous with "Germanic", assuming they'd flap the /n/. Although I suppose that would likely be [ɾ̃] and not just plain [ɾ]. Still, virtually homophonous.

[Nortaneous]

does that dialect not have { > e@ / _{m n}?

[Porphyrogenitos]

does that dialect not have { > e@ / _{m n}?

Well, I just heard the person say a couple of sentences, so I can't be quite sure what dialect they spoke, but I'm in a North Midland area on the edge of Appalachia - though with few actual Appalachian speakers in this locale, as far as I can tell. Lots of people from across Ohio and the Midwest. In any case, they didn't have æ-tensing. Wikipedia says æ-tensing is a characteristic of General American/the Midlands, but I personally don't have it, and I've rarely noticed it amongst anyone besides obvious Southern or Appalachian speakers.

I personally have /æ/ in "mayonnaise", "crayon", and "graham", which, also according to Wikipedia, are hypercorrections of historical /eə/ in non-æ-tensing varieties.

Also I will say that that X-SAMPA was extremely confusing to decipher at first.

[Viktor77]

Sometimes my mind, when I am particularly exhausted, does weird things with strong verb simple past tense and participle forms, I think in an attempt to regularize them.

I've noticed particularly a form of I drive, I drove in the simple past as I driv [dZr\.Iv], perhaps associated with I've driven.

I drink, I drank, I've dranken is another one I've noticed.

I would bet this happens often to English speakers when they are mentally exhausted or inebriated, or otherwise temporarily impaired.

[Thry]

Well, in Spanish I end up saying stupid stuff like escribido or resolvido too. Neurologic deficit impairs language, ofc.

[R.Rusanov]

Sometimes I say 'another X than Y' instead of 'another X from Y'

it seems like it fits the meaning of 'than' better than 'from' which nowadays is mostly locative in meaning

I don't say 'different X than Y' though

[Maulrus]

I've noticed that me and my friends have taken to dropping the copula in some sentences of the form "[noun] is so [adj] right now". So things like "food so good right now", "weather so awful right now", etc. It started online, but we say it out loud now and it doesn't sound off or anything.

[linguoboy]

I've noticed that me and my friends have taken to dropping the copula in some sentences of the form "[noun] is so [adj] right now". So things like "food so good right now", "weather so awful right now", etc. It started online, but we say it out loud now and it doesn't sound off or anything.

I imagine I would mentally supply an 's in those utterance, e.g. "food's so good right now". (I normally simplify geminates in allegro speech anyhow.)

[Viktor77]

Has anyone used the habitual "be" outside of AAVE? Granted I grew up where AAVE was widely spoken, I often catch myself saying it in short remarks, and don't think in any ironic way. For example, with my class I said without thinking, "But sometimes y'all be changin' seats on me." The "y'all" is just something I say because I'm frustrated English has no good 2Pl pronoun. The habitual is very useful in English though, and I'd say it more often but I'm afraid I'll sound as if I'm mocking AAVE because I'm white. Then again it might just mark me as speaking dialect too, not as mocking. I want to say down south lower class white people speak a vernacular with traits of AAVE (though I'm a solid Inland North speaker).

[ol bofosh]

Can't say I've ever used the habitual "be"... nor y'all (I've got less of an excuse to use them, being a limey - just wouldn't work with my accent). Brings up vivid images of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air though

Hmm, didn't realise it's habitual. Never got that impression.

Edit: Talking of 2p, I have a habit of saying "see ya laters" as a plural. Saying it to one person just wouldn't seem right.

[----]

I want to say down south lower class white people speak a vernacular with traits of AAVE (though I'm a solid Inland North speaker).

Not just lower class people. The majority of young white speakers here speak a version of English that is quite mixed with AAVE. The most obvious things that have bled into non-AAVE speech are vocabulary but I think there are several grammatical elements that are shared as well. I couldn't give you a particular example but I would say most people here who are not speakers of AAVE do not use (or only rarely use, even then often ironically) habitual be.

[linguoboy]

If you're looking for a habitual form of be which doesn't sound like a mockery of African Americans, there's also Hiberno-English do be. You'll just sound like you're mocking Irish people, which in general people here are much more cool with.

[linguoboy]

This usage (because + quasi-verb) seems related to the recent accession of because to the ranks of prepositions, but still a different phenomenon.

Other examples:
"Why the mad hair, girl? Because damn you, growled Thorn, that's why."
"I know I probably shouldn't go there because, well, I really don't want to. Also, it will only piss him off. So, I'm going to write about him, because fuck that guy."
"Because to hell with moderation. Pizza Hut's New Pizza Has a Crust Covered in Doritos."

[ol bofosh]

Call me European, but I like the Boston street layout. It's easier on the eye.

[sirdanilot]

The boston one has a normal street lay-out, New York is crazily artificial. Boston is therefore probably more European-Friendly. I much prefer cities that have grown organically rather than just someone playing simcity4 in real life and planning the entire thing.

'Because f** you' this construction seems restricted to swear words, and 'because f** you' memes seem to have orginiated it. I doubt it will spread to other areas of the language but hey who knows.

Some people in my group of friends also do something similar. 'Waarom heb je een gele trui aan?''Omdat dingen' (why are you wearing a yellow sweater? because things). But this seems to be a highly innovative use that not even nearly everyone will be employing in the near future. '*omdat + swear word' seems to be impossible, though. '*omdat teringlijer' (*because tuberculosis-sufferer)

And yes tuberculosis-sufferer is a nice swear word in Dutch, like any disease is. You can wish the most horrible diseases upon someone in Dutch if there is enough reason for it, for example when they fail to yield when you come from the right hand side on your bicycle, or when they run a red light on their bike, or when they bike in pedestrian-only areas. Reasons to wish cholera, typhoid, syfilis and even cancer upon them. The Dutch are the nicest people in the world I'd say.