On July 21 2013 11:44 MountainDewJunkie wrote: All of them are fine except the fucking "a lot of Koreans are." I mean, "a lot" if a modifier for the the plural noun Koreans. You can't say "several koreans is," or "few Koreans is." Why? Because the modifiers "a lot," "many," and "few," all imply plurality! Therefore, "is" is not acceptable imo, even in the face of some nonsense about "is" relating to the modifier and not the noun.
At least that's what I thought. I have a math degree, leave me alone!
Except that 'a lot of' is not a modifier, it's nothing in fact 'a lot' is a noun phrase, 'of Koreans' is a prepositional phrase in this case signifying a partitive construct.
You can see it's a noun phrase because you can insert an adjective in between 'A talented lot of Koreans is ...' another way is 'that lot of Koreans is ...' not 'those lot of Koreans are ...'
The reason it does not sound acceptable to you is obviously because your mind has been polluted by vernacular English.
You're misusing "a lot". It's synonymous with "many", and used- more often than not- in the same way.
That is the cause of the error, not an argument to its correctness. You don't say 'many of people', 'many' is a determiner. 'a lot' is a noun phrase. You can say that by that you can say 'The many great men that gave their lives that day.' but not 'the a lot of great men that gave their lives that day.'.
Very few people (and certainly even fewer casters) refer to "a lot" as a singular grouping of items, as in "a pride of lions" being the same as "a lot of men". "Lot" is almost never used to describe the official grouping of a set of items, in the same way a pride is. On the contrary, it's used to refer to multiple things, which means it's indeed plural rather than singular.
That they do it wrongly en masse is not excuse nor justification. It's still wrong. Grammatically it is a noun phrase and the verb should agree with it.
Like I said, it even has its own plural 'lots of Koreans are ...'
When it's half a continent doing it wrong en masse, it and all the other wrongness is generally accepted as a vernacular.
Like I said in the first paragraph of the OP, they are speaking a vernacular and informal form. But if we are ever going to legitimize e-sports they need to stop doing that. They're already wearing a tie but they're still talking like uncultured barbarians. I'd rather have it they did it in reverse, drop the tie but speak as if you enjoyed more than 3 years of compulsory education.
Are you really suggesting that most- if not all- commentators of other sports are saying "a lot is" instead of "a lot are"?
How would this legitimize us?
Okay, I rephrase, I think they sound retarded every time they speak like that and I made this topic mainly to vent steam.
On July 21 2013 12:24 Hertzy wrote: I'm fairly certain that e-sports will do just fine without the patronage of people who find linguistic evolution genuinely jarring.
By his logic, 90% of all sports are not legit because of its (their? are? on?) commentators
I think its safe to assume he doesn't have a clue
If i learnt albanian directly from a book and then listened to you and your family members in every-day life. I think you would probably make many many mistakes to me
However you are the native speaker and a language is a living thing, it is not set in stone and you can never fully learn it from a book. You and your family would be (in the same setting as this thread) entirely correct in your grammar / speech.
You dont make a thread, get told its wrong by countless educated native speakers and then tell them THEY are wrong about a language they've been speaking since before they could walk properly.
Because they aren't wrong. You just dont understand the language fully.
In OP's defense even though he didn't/doesn't fully understand the "a lot of" construction, the mistake of saying something like "This collection of historical examples prove nothing" is a very common one.
The purpose of a language is to convey a message. If a sentence were to convey a message without adhering to strict language syntax, the sentence would still be an efficacious use of the language.
On July 21 2013 11:44 MountainDewJunkie wrote: All of them are fine except the fucking "a lot of Koreans are." I mean, "a lot" if a modifier for the the plural noun Koreans. You can't say "several koreans is," or "few Koreans is." Why? Because the modifiers "a lot," "many," and "few," all imply plurality! Therefore, "is" is not acceptable imo, even in the face of some nonsense about "is" relating to the modifier and not the noun.
At least that's what I thought. I have a math degree, leave me alone!
Except that 'a lot of' is not a modifier, it's nothing in fact 'a lot' is a noun phrase, 'of Koreans' is a prepositional phrase in this case signifying a partitive construct.
You can see it's a noun phrase because you can insert an adjective in between 'A talented lot of Koreans is ...' another way is 'that lot of Koreans is ...' not 'those lot of Koreans are ...'
The reason it does not sound acceptable to you is obviously because your mind has been polluted by vernacular English.
You're misusing "a lot". It's synonymous with "many", and used- more often than not- in the same way.
That is the cause of the error, not an argument to its correctness. You don't say 'many of people', 'many' is a determiner. 'a lot' is a noun phrase. You can say that by that you can say 'The many great men that gave their lives that day.' but not 'the a lot of great men that gave their lives that day.'.
Very few people (and certainly even fewer casters) refer to "a lot" as a singular grouping of items, as in "a pride of lions" being the same as "a lot of men". "Lot" is almost never used to describe the official grouping of a set of items, in the same way a pride is. On the contrary, it's used to refer to multiple things, which means it's indeed plural rather than singular.
That they do it wrongly en masse is not excuse nor justification. It's still wrong. Grammatically it is a noun phrase and the verb should agree with it.
Like I said, it even has its own plural 'lots of Koreans are ...'
When it's half a continent doing it wrong en masse, it and all the other wrongness is generally accepted as a vernacular.
Like I said in the first paragraph of the OP, they are speaking a vernacular and informal form. But if we are ever going to legitimize e-sports they need to stop doing that. They're already wearing a tie but they're still talking like uncultured barbarians. I'd rather have it they did it in reverse, drop the tie but speak as if you enjoyed more than 3 years of compulsory education.
Are you really suggesting that most- if not all- commentators of other sports are saying "a lot is" instead of "a lot are"?
How would this legitimize us?
I am amazed at how you don't see how this legitimizes ESPORTS. We need to talk proper. It's not going to do well for ESPORTS if we don't use proper grammar and corrections in our casting, I don't think. A lot of casters are missing out on quite a bit by not looking at this topic. The amount of damage to ESPORTS this is causing should be quite obvioi. You may think you're so much better than them, but when the wave comes in with a huge amount of casters speaking properly washes up on your door, staring you down menacingly, and you ask "I am better than you all, aren't I?" They will not care and drown you with correct casting.
On July 21 2013 11:44 MountainDewJunkie wrote: All of them are fine except the fucking "a lot of Koreans are." I mean, "a lot" if a modifier for the the plural noun Koreans. You can't say "several koreans is," or "few Koreans is." Why? Because the modifiers "a lot," "many," and "few," all imply plurality! Therefore, "is" is not acceptable imo, even in the face of some nonsense about "is" relating to the modifier and not the noun.
At least that's what I thought. I have a math degree, leave me alone!
Except that 'a lot of' is not a modifier, it's nothing in fact 'a lot' is a noun phrase, 'of Koreans' is a prepositional phrase in this case signifying a partitive construct.
You can see it's a noun phrase because you can insert an adjective in between 'A talented lot of Koreans is ...' another way is 'that lot of Koreans is ...' not 'those lot of Koreans are ...'
The reason it does not sound acceptable to you is obviously because your mind has been polluted by vernacular English.
You're misusing "a lot". It's synonymous with "many", and used- more often than not- in the same way.
That is the cause of the error, not an argument to its correctness. You don't say 'many of people', 'many' is a determiner. 'a lot' is a noun phrase. You can say that by that you can say 'The many great men that gave their lives that day.' but not 'the a lot of great men that gave their lives that day.'.
Very few people (and certainly even fewer casters) refer to "a lot" as a singular grouping of items, as in "a pride of lions" being the same as "a lot of men". "Lot" is almost never used to describe the official grouping of a set of items, in the same way a pride is. On the contrary, it's used to refer to multiple things, which means it's indeed plural rather than singular.
That they do it wrongly en masse is not excuse nor justification. It's still wrong. Grammatically it is a noun phrase and the verb should agree with it.
Like I said, it even has its own plural 'lots of Koreans are ...'
When it's half a continent doing it wrong en masse, it and all the other wrongness is generally accepted as a vernacular.
Like I said in the first paragraph of the OP, they are speaking a vernacular and informal form. But if we are ever going to legitimize e-sports they need to stop doing that. They're already wearing a tie but they're still talking like uncultured barbarians. I'd rather have it they did it in reverse, drop the tie but speak as if you enjoyed more than 3 years of compulsory education.
Are you really suggesting that most- if not all- commentators of other sports are saying "a lot is" instead of "a lot are"?
How would this legitimize us?
I am amazed at how you don't see how this legitimizes ESPORTS. We need to talk proper. It's not going to do well for ESPORTS if we don't use proper grammar and corrections in our casting, I don't think. A lot of casters are missing out on quite a bit by not looking at this topic. The amount of damage to ESPORTS this is causing should be quite obvioi. You may think you're so much better than them, but when the wave comes in with a huge amount of casters speaking properly washes up on your door, staring you down menacingly, and you ask "I am better than you all, aren't I?" They will not care and drown you with correct casting.
On July 21 2013 11:44 MountainDewJunkie wrote: All of them are fine except the fucking "a lot of Koreans are." I mean, "a lot" if a modifier for the the plural noun Koreans. You can't say "several koreans is," or "few Koreans is." Why? Because the modifiers "a lot," "many," and "few," all imply plurality! Therefore, "is" is not acceptable imo, even in the face of some nonsense about "is" relating to the modifier and not the noun.
At least that's what I thought. I have a math degree, leave me alone!
Except that 'a lot of' is not a modifier, it's nothing in fact 'a lot' is a noun phrase, 'of Koreans' is a prepositional phrase in this case signifying a partitive construct.
You can see it's a noun phrase because you can insert an adjective in between 'A talented lot of Koreans is ...' another way is 'that lot of Koreans is ...' not 'those lot of Koreans are ...'
The reason it does not sound acceptable to you is obviously because your mind has been polluted by vernacular English.
You're misusing "a lot". It's synonymous with "many", and used- more often than not- in the same way.
That is the cause of the error, not an argument to its correctness. You don't say 'many of people', 'many' is a determiner. 'a lot' is a noun phrase. You can say that by that you can say 'The many great men that gave their lives that day.' but not 'the a lot of great men that gave their lives that day.'.
Very few people (and certainly even fewer casters) refer to "a lot" as a singular grouping of items, as in "a pride of lions" being the same as "a lot of men". "Lot" is almost never used to describe the official grouping of a set of items, in the same way a pride is. On the contrary, it's used to refer to multiple things, which means it's indeed plural rather than singular.
That they do it wrongly en masse is not excuse nor justification. It's still wrong. Grammatically it is a noun phrase and the verb should agree with it.
Like I said, it even has its own plural 'lots of Koreans are ...'
When it's half a continent doing it wrong en masse, it and all the other wrongness is generally accepted as a vernacular.
Like I said in the first paragraph of the OP, they are speaking a vernacular and informal form. But if we are ever going to legitimize e-sports they need to stop doing that. They're already wearing a tie but they're still talking like uncultured barbarians. I'd rather have it they did it in reverse, drop the tie but speak as if you enjoyed more than 3 years of compulsory education.
Are you really suggesting that most- if not all- commentators of other sports are saying "a lot is" instead of "a lot are"?
How would this legitimize us?
Okay, I rephrase, I think they sound retarded every time they speak like that and I made this topic mainly to vent steam.
Does that work for you?
Unfortunately, you're just going to have to suck it up. When spoken, languages are used informally. That is a fact of life.
On July 21 2013 11:44 MountainDewJunkie wrote: All of them are fine except the fucking "a lot of Koreans are." I mean, "a lot" if a modifier for the the plural noun Koreans. You can't say "several koreans is," or "few Koreans is." Why? Because the modifiers "a lot," "many," and "few," all imply plurality! Therefore, "is" is not acceptable imo, even in the face of some nonsense about "is" relating to the modifier and not the noun.
At least that's what I thought. I have a math degree, leave me alone!
Except that 'a lot of' is not a modifier, it's nothing in fact 'a lot' is a noun phrase, 'of Koreans' is a prepositional phrase in this case signifying a partitive construct.
You can see it's a noun phrase because you can insert an adjective in between 'A talented lot of Koreans is ...' another way is 'that lot of Koreans is ...' not 'those lot of Koreans are ...'
The reason it does not sound acceptable to you is obviously because your mind has been polluted by vernacular English.
You're misusing "a lot". It's synonymous with "many", and used- more often than not- in the same way.
That is the cause of the error, not an argument to its correctness. You don't say 'many of people', 'many' is a determiner. 'a lot' is a noun phrase. You can say that by that you can say 'The many great men that gave their lives that day.' but not 'the a lot of great men that gave their lives that day.'.
Very few people (and certainly even fewer casters) refer to "a lot" as a singular grouping of items, as in "a pride of lions" being the same as "a lot of men". "Lot" is almost never used to describe the official grouping of a set of items, in the same way a pride is. On the contrary, it's used to refer to multiple things, which means it's indeed plural rather than singular.
That they do it wrongly en masse is not excuse nor justification. It's still wrong. Grammatically it is a noun phrase and the verb should agree with it.
Like I said, it even has its own plural 'lots of Koreans are ...'
When it's half a continent doing it wrong en masse, it and all the other wrongness is generally accepted as a vernacular.
Like I said in the first paragraph of the OP, they are speaking a vernacular and informal form. But if we are ever going to legitimize e-sports they need to stop doing that. They're already wearing a tie but they're still talking like uncultured barbarians. I'd rather have it they did it in reverse, drop the tie but speak as if you enjoyed more than 3 years of compulsory education.
Are you really suggesting that most- if not all- commentators of other sports are saying "a lot is" instead of "a lot are"?
How would this legitimize us?
Okay, I rephrase, I think they sound retarded every time they speak like that and I made this topic mainly to vent steam.
Does that work for you?
You should add that to the OP, less people will be mad at you if you just come out and say you're bitching about something that most people don't care about.
All I get from this blog is the OP and Entirety are condescending jerks. Also I always use "a lot of (insert noun in plural form) are" and all my English teachers never have a problem with it and they think it's correct. In fact every person I have ever spoken English with also think it's correct. That's good enough for me and you all can go screw yourself.
On July 21 2013 12:34 Ingenol wrote: In OP's defense even though he didn't/doesn't fully understand the "a lot of" construction, the mistake of saying something like "This collection of historical examples prove nothing" is a very common one.
But a collection is technically one thing, even though it is composed of many. Like a team is composed of players, but it's a team. "This team is bad." So when you see "a lot of Koreans," he's attempting to say "a lot" is also singular in this form, like a team, but I don't know. If you were to say, "This group of Koreans is filled with talent." But, "a lot of Koreans is feisty"... Are we saying that Koreans is the adjective of the lot? As in, "Here is a lot." "A lot of what?" "A lot of Koreans." Hmm... I guess I kind of see what he's getting at. If he were to say "THIS lot of Koreans," that would be fine, but "a lot" seems suspicious I have no idea lol
On July 21 2013 11:44 MountainDewJunkie wrote: All of them are fine except the fucking "a lot of Koreans are." I mean, "a lot" if a modifier for the the plural noun Koreans. You can't say "several koreans is," or "few Koreans is." Why? Because the modifiers "a lot," "many," and "few," all imply plurality! Therefore, "is" is not acceptable imo, even in the face of some nonsense about "is" relating to the modifier and not the noun.
At least that's what I thought. I have a math degree, leave me alone!
Except that 'a lot of' is not a modifier, it's nothing in fact 'a lot' is a noun phrase, 'of Koreans' is a prepositional phrase in this case signifying a partitive construct.
You can see it's a noun phrase because you can insert an adjective in between 'A talented lot of Koreans is ...' another way is 'that lot of Koreans is ...' not 'those lot of Koreans are ...'
The reason it does not sound acceptable to you is obviously because your mind has been polluted by vernacular English.
You're misusing "a lot". It's synonymous with "many", and used- more often than not- in the same way.
That is the cause of the error, not an argument to its correctness. You don't say 'many of people', 'many' is a determiner. 'a lot' is a noun phrase. You can say that by that you can say 'The many great men that gave their lives that day.' but not 'the a lot of great men that gave their lives that day.'.
Very few people (and certainly even fewer casters) refer to "a lot" as a singular grouping of items, as in "a pride of lions" being the same as "a lot of men". "Lot" is almost never used to describe the official grouping of a set of items, in the same way a pride is. On the contrary, it's used to refer to multiple things, which means it's indeed plural rather than singular.
That they do it wrongly en masse is not excuse nor justification. It's still wrong. Grammatically it is a noun phrase and the verb should agree with it.
Like I said, it even has its own plural 'lots of Koreans are ...'
When it's half a continent doing it wrong en masse, it and all the other wrongness is generally accepted as a vernacular.
Like I said in the first paragraph of the OP, they are speaking a vernacular and informal form. But if we are ever going to legitimize e-sports they need to stop doing that. They're already wearing a tie but they're still talking like uncultured barbarians. I'd rather have it they did it in reverse, drop the tie but speak as if you enjoyed more than 3 years of compulsory education.
I agree with most of your points from a technical perspective, but some aspects of formal English simply don't work at all in spoken English. For example:
"A lot of people is" sounds rather ridiculous, because it contains mismatched registers: this usage of "lot" is itself slightly informal, so treating it with perfectly formal grammar (in defiance of the popular idiom) sounds almost wrong. If you really insisted on perfectly formal speech, you'd say something like "many people are", instead.
"He isn't going to do X, I do think" makes logical sense, and yes, accords better with how double negatives are generally treated in English, as you said, but in formal (usually written) English, you'd simply say "I don't think he is going to do this". On the other hand, in spoken English, like casting, the most important thing is to make sure that the listener understands what you're saying immediately, especially since they can't "look back" to your previous words as they could were they written. Therefore, it's important to repeat enough of the sentence to make the context clear: adding the word "don't" helps the listener connect the clarification "I think" with the (negative) subject it's referring to, whereas "I do think" (or just "I think") would have a little more potential for confusion.
However, I'm always happy to see people upholding formal English, which I love, even if it's not suited to every occasion, so thanks for this 'blog!
On July 21 2013 11:44 MountainDewJunkie wrote: All of them are fine except the fucking "a lot of Koreans are." I mean, "a lot" if a modifier for the the plural noun Koreans. You can't say "several koreans is," or "few Koreans is." Why? Because the modifiers "a lot," "many," and "few," all imply plurality! Therefore, "is" is not acceptable imo, even in the face of some nonsense about "is" relating to the modifier and not the noun.
At least that's what I thought. I have a math degree, leave me alone!
Except that 'a lot of' is not a modifier, it's nothing in fact 'a lot' is a noun phrase, 'of Koreans' is a prepositional phrase in this case signifying a partitive construct.
You can see it's a noun phrase because you can insert an adjective in between 'A talented lot of Koreans is ...' another way is 'that lot of Koreans is ...' not 'those lot of Koreans are ...'
The reason it does not sound acceptable to you is obviously because your mind has been polluted by vernacular English.
You're misusing "a lot". It's synonymous with "many", and used- more often than not- in the same way.
That is the cause of the error, not an argument to its correctness. You don't say 'many of people', 'many' is a determiner. 'a lot' is a noun phrase. You can say that by that you can say 'The many great men that gave their lives that day.' but not 'the a lot of great men that gave their lives that day.'.
Very few people (and certainly even fewer casters) refer to "a lot" as a singular grouping of items, as in "a pride of lions" being the same as "a lot of men". "Lot" is almost never used to describe the official grouping of a set of items, in the same way a pride is. On the contrary, it's used to refer to multiple things, which means it's indeed plural rather than singular.
That they do it wrongly en masse is not excuse nor justification. It's still wrong. Grammatically it is a noun phrase and the verb should agree with it.
Like I said, it even has its own plural 'lots of Koreans are ...'
When it's half a continent doing it wrong en masse, it and all the other wrongness is generally accepted as a vernacular.
Like I said in the first paragraph of the OP, they are speaking a vernacular and informal form. But if we are ever going to legitimize e-sports they need to stop doing that. They're already wearing a tie but they're still talking like uncultured barbarians. I'd rather have it they did it in reverse, drop the tie but speak as if you enjoyed more than 3 years of compulsory education.
I agree with most of your points from a technical perspective, but some aspects of formal English simply don't work at all in spoken English. For example:
"A lot of people is" sounds rather ridiculous, because it contains mismatched registers: this usage of "lot" is itself slightly informal, so treating it with perfectly formal grammar (in defiance of the popular idiom) sounds almost wrong. If you really insisted on perfectly formal speech, you'd say something like "many people are", instead.
"He isn't going to do X, I do think" makes logical sense, and yes, accords better with how double negatives are generally treated in English, as you said, but in formal (usually written) English, you'd simply say "I don't think he is going to do this". On the other hand, in spoken English, like casting, the most important thing is to make sure that the listener understands what you're saying immediately, especially since they can't "look back" to your previous words as they could were they written. Therefore, it's important to repeat enough of the sentence to make the context clear: adding the word "don't" helps the listener connect the clarification "I think" with the (negative) subject it's referring to, whereas "I do think" (or just "I think") would have a little more potential for confusion.
However, I'm always happy to see people upholding formal English, which I love, even if it's not suited to every occasion, so thanks for this 'blog!
I agree, I typically don't use 'a lot of Koreans', I use 'many Koreans' I also never say 'he's not going to do that I do think' but simply 'I don't think he's going to do that'
But if you are insisting on using them, at least use them grammatically I say.
On July 21 2013 12:45 vndestiny wrote: All I get from this blog is the OP and Entirety are condescending jerks. Also I always use "a lot of (insert noun in plural form) are" and all my English teachers never have a problem with it and they think it's correct. In fact every person I have ever spoken English with also think it's correct. That's good enough for me and you all can go screw yourself.
I sincerely apologize for coming across that way. I realize that the nature of my posting and my wording are indeed condescending, but I did not wish to belittle anyone in this grammar scuffle.
I especially apologize to HardlyNever because my comment towards him (her?) was especially biting and unnecessarily offensive. I truly did believe that HardlyNever was incorrect when it came to certain grammatical rules (including the usage of idioms), but the disagreement over grammar never meant that I believed myself to be superior to HardlyNever in any way including grammar. (I admit that my grammar is anything but infallible. )
I extend my hand in friendship and hope that grammar won't start wars.
I think that everyone actually arguing seriously in this thread needs to take a moment to watch this video.
Personally I don't care if casters make grammatical errors, their job is to talk about, and hype up the game we all love, not write an essay about it that needs to be marked by an examiner in some university.
On July 21 2013 13:58 SiskosGoatee wrote: I do, every time I hear 'quick' being used as an adverb my brain twitches sideways in my skull, it just sounds silly.
I hate to be this person but that seems like a serious medical issue that could lead to a tumour.
On July 21 2013 13:58 SiskosGoatee wrote: I do, every time I hear 'quick' being used as an adverb my brain twitches sideways in my skull, it just sounds silly.
Why do you critique the community so heavily, yet have no problem being lazy with your own writing? Surely you know that neither of those two commas are correct, as you're separating three independent clauses. You need semi-colons or periods. And those mistakes are obviously not the only ones; heck, even in the first line of your original post, you write "common place" instead of "commonplace" or "common-place". Your first paragraph is just one big run-on sentence too. We all make mistakes or are lazy sometimes, right?
It just seems a little hypocritical. Surely you should be consistent with your scrutiny, and even apply it to yourself?
I feel that everyone who complains about improper language impeding esports growth hasn't listened to enough sports commentary. It's filled with jargon, slang, etc. And there are more serious things to worry about than the way casters speak.
EPT
