Many people will say that these errors are now so common place in English that the language has changed, even though they are inadvisable to use in formal contexts and if e-sports hopes to ascertain a level of legitimacy in the eyes of the world it is important that we don't speak like we've been pulled from the ghetto too poor to afford primary education.
'He needs to get lings out quick.'
'He needs to get lings out quickly.'
A very common one I encounter. The mistaken application of an adjective in lieu of an adverb. The simple rule of thumb is that an adjective modifies a noun, whereas an adverb modifies a verb, adjective, or even other adverb. Typically adverbs in English are derived from adjectives by affixing -ly, but this is not absolute. In some cases this is irregular such as 'well' being the adverbial form of 'good'. In some cases both forms are the same such as with 'very' and 'verily' in fact means something entirely different.
To see when to use an adverb, one can use the simple rule of thumb. If one can say 'in an x manner'. Then it is an adverb. In this case one can say 'He needs to get lings out in a quick manner.', therefore it is an adverb and 'quickly' has to be used rather than 'quick'.
'It's not going too well for Stephano here, I don't think.'
'It's not going too well for Stephano here, I do think.'
Seems to be very common for British casters, not so much for their American counterparts. Anyone having paid a modicum of attention in primary education would know that a double negative makes a positive. If one doesn't think that it is not going too well for Stephano, then surely one thinks it is indeed going quite well for him?
'A lot of Koreans are using this new strat.'
'A lot of Koreans is using this new strat.'
The use of the plural verbal conjugation 'are' most likely stems from a mistaken idea that 'Koreans' is the subject of the sentence. It is not, 'a lot of Koreans' is, the head noun of that phrase being 'a lot'. 'of Koreans' here being a partitive qualifier and 'a lot' a nominative quantifier. The construct is quite similar to 'a cup of tea' and morphologically identical to 'a father of children' as English does not morphologically destinguish between partitive and genitive qualifiers like so many languages.
Apart from that, the subject can easily be seen to be singular since the indefinite article 'a' is used, which in English cannot be used with a plural nominal in any way. Therefore, the verb should conjugate in the singular and 'is' rather than 'are' should be used.
'He's getting to a high colossi number.'
'He's getting to a high colossus number.'
They say hypercorrection is a greater sin than genuine ignorance. Many casters, attempting to sound educated use the classical plural of colossus in a situation where a singular number is required. Compound nouns in English rarely if ever take the plural form of a modifying noun. Even in cases where the noun is a plurale tantum such as 'trousers' compounds still use the singular as in 'trouser pocket'.
As a related error, the plural 'nexi' is also often encountered, especially by Wolf. The analogy of replacing -us by -i to form plurals in Latin is crude at best. While it is true this rule applies for masculine o-declension nouns in Latin such as 'colossus'. There are a variety of other nouns such as feminine u-declension, masculine u-declension, neuter consonant-declension nouns where it does not apply at all. While there is indeed a masculine o-declension substansive participle 'nexus' with plural 'nexi' in Latin, it means 'he who is bound'. The masculine u-declension noun 'nexus' with plural simply 'nexus' like any masculine u-declension noun is the actual source of the building, and means 'that which binds'.
Artosis is also often found fondly saying 'octopi', octopus is not a masculine o-declension noun, it is a neuter consonant declension noun. The 'us' in octopus in fact is a long u, not a short u as in colossus. This difference was clearly pronounced in Latin, but not written in inscriptions. The correct Latinate plural is in fact 'octopodes', which just sounds silly. Most sources, such as Fowler, recommend simply saying 'octopusses', as 'octopi' makes you seem pretentious to educated people, and 'octopodes' makes uneducated people not even know what you're talking about.
As a side not: the Latinate plural of 'phoenix' is 'phoenices'. Much like 'matrix' and 'matrices'. Latin plurals can actually be quite complicated and in order to correctly form them the declension class, stem, and gender of the noun in question must all be accounted for.
'Hyun's so much better than him.'
'Hyun's so much better than he.'
In this case, the incorrect use of the oblique 'him' rather than the nominative 'he' stems from the mistaken perception that 'than' is a preposition. While there are connectives which can function like prepositions in English, and doing so often subtly changes the meaning of the sentence 'than' is not one of them. To see it cannot be a prepostion we can establish by that we cannot make sentences outside of comparison from it 'we walk than him ' makes no sense. While for instance a true connective which can also be a preposition can be used much like that, such as 'we sleep except him'.
As 'than' is a connective which connects two sentences. The sentence above is simply the short form for:
'Hyun's so much better than he is.'
As saying 'than him is' sounds more than fishy. The correct form to use is 'he'.
However, make no mistake the similar 'as' can in fact serve as a preposition. In fact 'I say this as he' and 'I say this as him' mean two different things. The former is short for 'I say this as he says this.' When we say 'I do this as the manager of this company.', we typically don't mean 'I do this as the manager of this company does this.', though it is at all possible as only pronouns still inflect for case in English and the sentence is ambiguous.
All in all, I think it quite important to immediately mail the sponsors of these casters to apprise them of the grave grammatical atrocities commited by them so they can be replaced by people who don't to further the legitimacy of e-sports.
Edit: I forgot a couple of annoying ones, firstly, as Monk points out:
'He's coming in with a huge amount of Zerglings.'
'He's coming in with a huge number of Zerglings.'
Zergling is a count noun, it can be counted, one can have 'one Zergling', or 'two Zerglings', one cannot have an amount of any count noun, only of mass nouns. One has a certain amount of creep, but a certain number of Zerglings.
Other distinctions to be upheld are 'few' and 'many' for count nouns contrasting 'little' and 'much' for mass nouns.
'Aren't I?'
'Am I not?' or 'Ain't I?'
This one is particularly interesting. For some reason a stigma has been attached to the use of 'ain't' over the last 100 years in English, most likely because many people incorrectly use it in the third person. However 'ain't' is simply a contraction of 'am not', much like 'aren't is for 'are not'. It is surely ungrammatical to say 'Aren't I?', 'Are I not I.R. Baboon?'...? However people seem to prefer the ungrammatical to the stigmatic for some reason.
'... casted by Khaldor & Wolf.'
'... cast by Khaldor & Wolf.'
The perfect participle and preterite of 'to cast' is simply 'cast' I'm afraid, not 'casted', this is quite common for verbs already ending in a dental plosive, another example being 'to put'. The die was cast by Julius Caesar as he crossed the Rubicon, it wasn't casted by him.
And the Hyun one is incorrect too, You correct something that isn't wrong, into a correct usage of he, but him is still the most commonly used (and correct) manner of saying something along those lines.
Your (mistake for your own benefit) basically correcting things that aren't incorrect in a speech pov or are used all the time as common slang, therefore while they are technically wrong, they aren't because its slang.
Slang isn't meant to be correct english from a dictionary, it's just meant to make sense. (they dont say him is because it doesn't make sense, they say him.)
So, this blog is just wrong and full of fail. I dont get where you're coming from on alot of angles.
Also, using a made up plural on a made up word then claiming its wrong? Uhuh.
I guess slang is hard to comprehend when english is your second language and you don't use it as well as native speakers, so you don't understand it fully.
Therefore you shouldn't have written this blog in the first place.
You could argue commentators shouldn't use slang in their casts, but common slang like this is used in 95% of normal day speech and in most cases 100% for people. Asking them to change the way they've spoken for their entire lives when its not technically incorrect is a bit much. Even if it does upset non-native speakers lol
But dont get me wrong, most of these aren't even slang and its like your reading descriptions from a dictionary but dont fully understand how to use these words
On July 21 2013 10:13 monk wrote: I was just about to make a thread like this. However, you're missing the most common error. Countable vs uncountable nouns:
He has a high amount number of colossi. He has less fewer minerals than his opponent. He has much many more hellbats than he should.
There's also a few more that I was going to include.
Oh yeah, was originally planning on adding just one, just forgot about it for some reason.
On July 21 2013 10:39 HardlyNever wrote: "A lot" is always taken as plural. You can never have "a lot" of a noun, and it be singular.
Therefore, you should use "are," not "is." You are just over-thinking this one.
Certainly not, 'lot' is a noun like any other, it just means a particularly large quantity, it even has its own plural. 'Lots of Koreans are doing that strat.'.
My god, a group of people in this thread are trying to be smarter than they really are, or something. Group is just a singular noun, so I have to use is, right? No. Group has a plural too. Groups. You still use group and the plural form of is, depending on the situation.
Shit i shouldn't reply while semi-drunk the morning after, HardlyNever summed everything up with one link what i spent 10 minutes typing out and i still didnt put the correct fucking word in.
On July 21 2013 10:51 HardlyNever wrote: My god, a group of people in this thread are trying to be smarter than they really are, or something. Group is just a singular noun, so I have to use is, right? No. Group has a plural too. Groups. You still use group and the plural form of is, depending on the situation.
Just stop. You're just digging a hole for yourself.
Not only do you make a totally incorrect statement, you then go on to show that you have no understanding of what an "idiom" truly is. I think the hole is being dug around you?
Just because proper grammar is not widely recognized does not make it incorrect. For example, lots of people are accustomed to saying "none of them are going to advance" when the correct form is "none of them is going to advance" (because "none" is a singular pronoun).
Let's not forget the classic mistake: The winner of DreamHack will certainly solidify their reputation. The winner of DreamHack will certainly solidify his/her reputation.
The words "group" and "lot" are singular. A lot is being sold. A group is going to be played tomorrow.
The phrase "of people" can be treated as a prepositional phrase. A lot [of people] is happy. A group [of people] is here.
Edit: As for idioms, idioms are not widely recognized grammatical mistakes - they are examples of figurative language.
"The cat is out of the bag." The sentence is perfectly correct in terms of grammar, yet it seems to make no sense when taken literally. That is an idiom.
"A lot of people are going to be disappointed." This sentence is simply incorrect. This is not an idiom at all, but it can be considered acceptable in everyday usage.
On July 21 2013 10:51 HardlyNever wrote: My god, a group of people in this thread are trying to be smarter than they really are, or something. Group is just a singular noun, so I have to use is, right? No. Group has a plural too. Groups. You still use group and the plural form of is, depending on the situation.
Just stop. You're just digging a hole for yourself.
An idiom has nothing to do with this. An idiom is a combination of words whose meaning cannot be inferred from its components. Idioms are in fact typically grammatical even though their original meaning has shifted. In fact saying 'my trousers are ...' is a good example of an idiom, the actual meaning of the phrase shifted from what its grammatical morphology would normally signify. In this case the phrase is semantically singular, but grammatically still plural. Despite 'a lot of people' as a noun phrase referring to multiple people, it is still grammatically singular. This is not unlike saying 'The parliament has decided that ...' not 'have decided that ...' though the latter is becoming increasingly popular in uneducated forms of UK English.
It's quite common anyway:
'A pride of Lions is walking there.'
'A murder of ravens is flying there.'
'A herd of cattle is grazing there.
'A union of UK Psychologists has decided that ...'
On July 21 2013 11:02 Capped wrote: Entirety. Lets sum this up.
99% of people (who speak english as a NATIVE language) on this planet use common phrases / words / "borked" english such as this.
The dictionary tells you its wrong.
So are the majority of native speakers wrong because the dictionary says so, or has the language just evolved?
Like I said in the op. There are of course different registers of English. In the most formal and highest register however all the things I outlined should be upheld, they speak vernacular English while casting which does not legitimize e-esports whatsoever.
Apart from that, it's obviously a bit tongue-in-cheek.
Sure, if the entire civilized world believes that the world is flat, does that make the world any flatter than it currently is?
Of course, languages do evolve. However, that does not change the fact that SiskosGoatee's points are technically correct. Perhaps they are not common, but they are correct.
You're just wrong. I'm done with this. Why is it so hard for people on the internet to say "Oh, I was wrong." But no, you keep going.
A group of people is wrong. Does that sound right to you? You know why it doesn't? Because it is wrong, as are you. Look, I used "you" and "are" together. I should have used "is" right? No. That isn't how English works.
You is wrong would be correct by your entirely one dimensional argument (singular vs plural).
Ok, now I'm done. You can continue arguing if you want, but I'm not going to ram my head into this brick wall anymore. Maybe someone else can take up the torch. If they is feeling up to it .
These sentence patterns are widely used in sports commentary and journalism. They're absolutely fine. Apart from the ones related to numbers, all of your examples sound very weird to native speakers.
On July 21 2013 11:06 HardlyNever wrote: You is wrong would be correct by your entirely one dimensional argument (singular vs plural).
No, my argument applies only to the third person. My god, get a basic grasp of English verbal conjugation:
Behold, the verb 'to be' in English, for your viewing pleasure:
Long infinitive: to be Short infinitive: be
present forms: - singular: - - first person: am - - second person: art - - third person: is - plural, all persons: are
past forms: - singular - - first person: was - - second person: wert - - third person: was - plural, all persons: were
subjunctive I: be subjunctive II: were
perfective participle: been imperfective participle: being gerundive: being
Now, what's up with 'art' and 'wert' eh? Well, that's entirely my argument, you use 'are' in 'you are' instead of 'you art' when it is singular because even though it is semantically singular, it is grammatically plural. that's an idiom, the grammatically singular form is 'thou art'. The reason we are currently using the plural form in 21th century English for both singular and plural is because the English are a bunch of overly polite people. It was originally only used in formal occasions, to use the plural in lieu of the singular as a sign of respect, eventually the plural form almost completely stopped existing because it became rude to use. even in informal situations but up to 1800's you still saw people using 'thou art' or 'thou walkest' etc in informal situations.
However, you can still see it, for instance, God is properly addressed with the singular form to intimate the personal relationship everyone is supposed to have with Him. So one says 'Our father, who art in heaven.'.
On July 21 2013 10:09 SiskosGoatee wrote: 'A lot of Koreans are using this new strat.'
'A lot of Koreans is using this new strat.'
The use of the plural verbal conjugation 'are' most likely stems from a mistaken idea that 'Koreans' is the subject of the sentence. It is not, 'a lot of Koreans' is, the head noun of that phrase being 'a lot'. 'of Koreans' here being a partitive qualifier and 'a lot' a nominative quantifier. The construct is quite similar to 'a cup of tea' and morphologically identical to 'a father of children' as English does not morphologically destinguish between partitive and genitive qualifiers like so many languages.
Apart from that, the subject can easily be seen to be singular since the indefinite article 'a' is used, which in English cannot be used with a plural nominal in any way. Therefore, the verb should conjugate in the singular and 'is' rather than 'are' should be used.
'He's getting to a high colossi number.'
'He's getting to a high colossus number.'
They say hypercorrection is a greater sin than genuine ignorance. Many casters, attempting to sound educated use the classical plural of colossus in a situation where a singular number is required. Compound nouns in English rarely if ever take the plural form of a modifying noun. Even in cases where the noun is a plurale tantum such as 'trousers' compounds still use the singular as in 'trouser pocket'.
As a related error, the plural 'nexi' is also often encountered, especially by Wolf. The analogy of replacing -us by -i to form plurals in Latin is crude at best. While it is true this rule applies for masculine o-declension nouns in Latin such as 'colossus'. There are a variety of other nouns such as feminine u-declension, masculine u-declension, neuter consonant-declension nouns where it does not apply at all. While there is indeed a masculine o-declension substansive participle 'nexus' with plural 'nexi' in Latin, it means 'he who is bound'. The masculine u-declension noun 'nexus' with plural simply 'nexus' like any masculine u-declension noun is the actual source of the building, and means 'that which binds'.
Artosis is also often found fondly saying 'octopi', octopus is not a masculine o-declension noun, it is a neuter consonant declension noun. The 'us' in octopus in fact is a long u, not a short u as in colossus. This difference was clearly pronounced in Latin, but not written in inscriptions. The correct Latinate plural is in fact 'octopodes', which just sounds silly. Most sources, such as Fowler, recommend simply saying 'octopusses', as 'octopi' makes you seem pretentious to educated people, and 'octopodes' makes uneducated people not even know what you're talking about.
As a side not: the Latinate plural of 'phoenix' is 'phoenices'. Much like 'matrix' and 'matrices'. Latin plurals can actually be quite complicated and in order to correctly form them the declension class, stem, and gender of the noun in question must all be accounted for.
For the second point, English grammar rules don't extend into fictional literature. Either way is correct by the fact that English grammar/plurality rules don't apply in fictional worlds. The plural of Nexus could be Cannon, and that could be entirely correct, however confusing it would be. Grammar rules also don't extend to proper nouns. Octopi is a correct variant of the plural of octopus.
What are you talking about, the consensus in that thread barring the last post is overwhelmingly in favour of letting the verb agree with its grammatical subject.
For the second point, English grammar rules don't extend into fictional literature. Either way is correct by the fact that English grammar/plurality rules don't apply in fictional worlds. The plural of Nexus could be Cannon, and that could be entirely correct, however confusing it would be. Octopi is a correct variant of the plural of octopus.
Nexus is an English word whose plurals in English can either be Nexuses or Nexus. Octopus is also an English word whose plurals can be Octopuses or Octopodes, the latter of which may make you appear educated to some, but many people aren't going to understand what you're talking about.
'Octopi' is a ridiculous bastardization from people coming up with something to appear intelligent, it is neither English nor Latin.
Is this a joke? Not only do you come off as condescending, rather than intent on educating, but your "a lot are" vs. "a lot is" example is just plain wrong.
My god, get a basic grasp of English verbal conjugation
On July 21 2013 11:31 SiskosGoatee wrote: 'Octopi' is a ridiculous bastardization from people coming up with something to appear intelligent, it is neither English nor Latin.
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!
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.
What are you talking about, the consensus in that thread barring the last post is overwhelmingly in favour of letting the verb agree with its grammatical subject.
For the second point, English grammar rules don't extend into fictional literature. Either way is correct by the fact that English grammar/plurality rules don't apply in fictional worlds. The plural of Nexus could be Cannon, and that could be entirely correct, however confusing it would be. Octopi is a correct variant of the plural of octopus.
Nexus is an English word whose plurals in English can either be Nexuses or Nexus. Octopus is also an English word whose plurals can be Octopuses or Octopodes, the latter of which may make you appear educated to some, but many people aren't going to understand what you're talking about.
'Octopi' is a ridiculous bastardization from people coming up with something to appear intelligent, it is neither English nor Latin.
The consensus of the people is to agree with the text - all texts state the the 'are' form is correct, regardless of the consensus.
By your ideology, color is not a correct variant of colour. Yes it is, and so is octopi. Just because a word doesn't have its roots in Latin or Greek or whatever does not legitimize its existence. Octopi has existed long enough to be accepted as a variant of the original word, and most legitimate dictionaries will have accepted this fate, regardless of how ugly it is and how much English purists scoff at it, and mention something about accepting it not being a legal Latin pluralization.
English evolves to accept words regardless of how "you're supposed to pluralize them".
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.
Many people are scared. A lot of people are scared.
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.
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.
Oh, the joys of homonyms. You can say "A talented lot of Koreans", in which case you would be referring to a single specific set of Koreans, or you can say "A lot of talented Koreans", in which case you are referring to an unspecified number of individuals. In this context, however, it's the latter usage, seeing as this is a professional caster who would mention the "lot", i.e. team, by name. Also, he's bloody well using the latter definition.
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 ...'
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.
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.
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"?
First of all, spoken language and written language are different beasts. Spoken language discussing a niche topic, even more so. For example the phrase, "He needs to get lings out, quick!" makes perfect sense in terms of grammar if you actually think about it and consider possible missing punctuation.
Likewise the expression, "It's not ..., I don't think" is a very common and widely accepted and understood linguistic device. You're not saying, "It's not going well for Stephano, I don't think (that it's not going well for Stephano). You're saying, "It's not going well for Stephano, I don't think (that it's going well for Stephano).
A lot of ... are vs a lot of ... is, is a horse that's been beaten to death and while some people still enjoy debating whether it's are or is and why should it be, the simple fact is that the vast majority of English speakers uses 'a lot of ... are' and not 'is', so it's pretty pointless discussing whether it's correct or not - it's how it is used by all but the most snobby wannabe linguists.
I could go on but it's a pretty boring subject to speak about. Bottomline, you should remember that no language is set in stone, especially so when considering spoken dialects in informal settings.
edit: read the OP's last post after writing this reply and felt sorry for myself for wasting the time on typing this out. oh well
It can be "a lot of _____ are" or "a lot of _____ is" depending on the usage of the term. For example "A lot of Koreans are using this strat" is actually correct, in this sense "a lot of," is actually plural because it goes with the count noun Koreans.
It's the difference between "There is a lot of pepper in this soup" (the spice, pepper, is a non-count noun) and "There are a lot of peppers in this soup" (the vegetable peppers is a count noun). You could say "There is a lot of peppers in this soup" but this would be an extremely niche construction meaning literally that you ordered a fixed quantity of peppers called a lot and added them all to the soup, like a gaggle of geese or something along those lines.
Oh, the joys of homonyms. You can say "A talented lot of Koreans", in which case you would be referring to a single specific set of Koreans, or you can say "A lot of talented Koreans", in which case you are referring to an unspecified number of individuals. In this context, however, it's the latter usage, seeing as this is a professional caster who would mention the "lot", i.e. team, by name. Also, he's bloody well using the latter definition.
This is right.
Edit: see http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/541/1/ for further discussion, and the example "A lot of Americans travel to Europe." If you said "A lot of Americans travels to Europe" you're talking about some specific lot of defined people that is doing the traveling.
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.
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?
Well, half of the things talked about in the grammar Nazi video including the things you talked about aren't grammatical errors, they are stylistic 'errors', a big difference. The production rules of English grammar cannot derive them being wrong. They simply make text unclear or 'hard to read' on a subjective level. A dangling participle most certainly is not a grammatical error, it's a stylistic one leading to ambiguities, but guess what, the English language is full of ambiguities anyway.
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?
but guess what, the English language is full of ambiguities anyway.
The irony is strong in this one. Stop being so hypercritical of people who have to fill time by speaking. It's their job. Deal with it, they aren't writing an essay but I'm sure they would be quite capable if they had to do so.
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?
Well, half of the things talked about in the grammar Nazi video including the things you talked about aren't grammatical errors, they are stylistic 'errors', a big difference. The production rules of English grammar cannot derive them being wrong. They simply make text unclear or 'hard to read' on a subjective level. A dangling participle most certainly is not a grammatical error, it's a stylistic one leading to ambiguities, but guess what, the English language is full of ambiguities anyway.
...What? Dangling participles are definitely grammatical errors:
"A dangling modifier is an ambiguous grammatical construct" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dangling_modifier)
"The grammatical problem here..." (http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/WritingGuide/10dangpt.htm)
"They then end up with what’s known as a dangling participle, as in this grammatically incorrect statement: ..." (http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/dangling-participles)
And even if dangling participles weren't *grammatical* errors per se, using them and creating run-on sentences and lacking proper punctuation do not become justified. You learn these things in English class as a child. People often make mistakes when speaking or talking because they're more focused on the context and substance of their conversation, rather than the absolute correctness of their speech. That's life. Sometimes it makes you cringe, but be critical of yourself before being critical of others.
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?
Well, half of the things talked about in the grammar Nazi video including the things you talked about aren't grammatical errors, they are stylistic 'errors', a big difference. The production rules of English grammar cannot derive them being wrong. They simply make text unclear or 'hard to read' on a subjective level. A dangling participle most certainly is not a grammatical error, it's a stylistic one leading to ambiguities, but guess what, the English language is full of ambiguities anyway.
...What? Dangling participles are definitely grammatical errors:
"A dangling modifier is an ambiguous grammatical construct" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dangling_modifier)
"The grammatical problem here..." (http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/WritingGuide/10dangpt.htm)
"They then end up with what’s known as a dangling participle, as in this grammatically incorrect statement: ..." (http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/dangling-participles)
And even if dangling participles weren't *grammatical* errors per se, using them and creating run-on sentences and lacking proper punctuation do not become justified. You learn these things in English class as a child. People often make mistakes when speaking or talking because they're more focused on the context and substance of their conversation, rather than the absolute correctness of their speech. That's life. Sometimes it makes you cringe, but be critical of yourself before being critical of others.
You don't know what the difference between a grammatical and a stylistic error is at all do you? Saying it's an ambiguous grammatical construct has nothing to do with whether or not the error itself is grammatical or stylistic.
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?
but guess what, the English language is full of ambiguities anyway.
The irony is strong in this one. Stop being so hypercritical of people who have to fill time by speaking. It's their job. Deal with it, they aren't writing an essay but I'm sure they would be quite capable if they had to do so.
Yes. Having all the time in the world to write a paragraph (and still fucking it up) on the internet and telling 45,000 people what's going on in a fast paced video game and killing downtime with your co-caster is another.
Does that mean that casters shouldn't receive criticism? No, but it doesn't mean people should whine and act like their experience is ruined (see: guy who said "my brain twitches in my skull") because of minor grammatical errors.
I don't consider it mentally healthy to obsess over minor errors that people make whether it's when you're at work and "UGH, Dennis ALWAYS screws that up," or when the person in front of you isn't driving fast enough, or I wrote this sentence poorly as fuck.
LOL there's so much butthurt in this thread, people frothing with rage over something so trivial. It's as if they're having violent flashbacks to high school when they got heavily marked down on their homework by their teachers for improper grammar. If this post upsets people I can't imagine how they function in daily life.
Artosis is also often found fondly saying 'octopi', octopus is not a masculine o-declension noun, it is a neuter consonant declension noun. The 'us' in octopus in fact is a long u, not a short u as in colossus. This difference was clearly pronounced in Latin, but not written in inscriptions. The correct Latinate plural is in fact 'octopodes', which just sounds silly.
Actually, it's not Latin at all, but Greek: ὀκτώ + πούς, ποδός masc. (> nom. pl. masc. πόδες).
This thread taught me that Gollum has a better mastery of English than any of us ever will. I'll just stick to hating semantics and not giving a shit about this insignificant stuff though =/
On July 21 2013 17:42 OmniEulogy wrote: This thread taught me that Gollum has a better mastery of English than any of us ever will. I'll just stick to hating semantics and not giving a shit about this insignificant stuff though =/
No dude, this is fucking important as hell. If we don't stop people from saying "A lot of Koreans are doing this" now, then E-SPORTS IS FUCKING DEAD. You hear me!? We, as American and British citizens have been butchering our own language for way too long and now that a wise Albanian has emerged from the shadows to teach us the way, we shun him?
Artosis is also often found fondly saying 'octopi', octopus is not a masculine o-declension noun, it is a neuter consonant declension noun. The 'us' in octopus in fact is a long u, not a short u as in colossus. This difference was clearly pronounced in Latin, but not written in inscriptions. The correct Latinate plural is in fact 'octopodes', which just sounds silly.
Actually, it's not Latin at all, but Greek: ὀκτώ + πούς, ποδός masc. (> nom. pl. masc. πόδες).
It's a Latin loan from Greek, the actual Greek word that was more commonly used for it was actually πολύπους.
Artosis is also often found fondly saying 'octopi', octopus is not a masculine o-declension noun, it is a neuter consonant declension noun. The 'us' in octopus in fact is a long u, not a short u as in colossus. This difference was clearly pronounced in Latin, but not written in inscriptions. The correct Latinate plural is in fact 'octopodes', which just sounds silly.
Actually, it's not Latin at all, but Greek: ὀκτώ + πούς, ποδός masc. (> nom. pl. masc. πόδες).
It's a Latin loan from Greek, the actual Greek word that was more commonly used for it was actually πολύπους.
Right, and therefore the only correct declension of the masculin noun πούς, ποδός is the Greek one.
Artosis is also often found fondly saying 'octopi', octopus is not a masculine o-declension noun, it is a neuter consonant declension noun. The 'us' in octopus in fact is a long u, not a short u as in colossus. This difference was clearly pronounced in Latin, but not written in inscriptions. The correct Latinate plural is in fact 'octopodes', which just sounds silly.
Actually, it's not Latin at all, but Greek: ὀκτώ + πούς, ποδός masc. (> nom. pl. masc. πόδες).
It's a Latin loan from Greek, the actual Greek word that was more commonly used for it was actually πολύπους.
Right, and therefore the only correct declension of the masculin noun πούς, ποδός is the Greek one.
It actually has its own consonant declension in Latin which of course slightly differs from the Greek consonant declension. Most notably the plural in English is pronounced with a long 'e' in octopodes opposed to a short one which it would've had if it came into English from Greek rather than Latin.
On July 21 2013 17:42 OmniEulogy wrote: This thread taught me that Gollum has a better mastery of English than any of us ever will. I'll just stick to hating semantics and not giving a shit about this insignificant stuff though =/
No dude, this is fucking important as hell. If we don't stop people from saying "A lot of Koreans are doing this" now, then E-SPORTS IS FUCKING DEAD. You hear me!? We, as American and British citizens have been butchering our own language for way too long and now that a wise Albanian has emerged from the shadows to teach us the way, we shun him?
If casters spoke in a grammatically correct fashion, they would be boring as all fuck and they would sound haughty.
It's a good thing that casters cast like human beings rather than writers of the classical era. As they say, rules are meant to be broken, and shouldn't dictate how people should actually speak. I think it's quite shallow to ignore the existence or the legitimacy of colloquialisms. OP's concerns for the most part don't matter IMO, except "huge number of zerglings" and "cast by Khaldor & Wolf".
It blows my mind that there's no mention of the fact that nearly all casters say things like "if he would have..."
Small correction: the correct plural of octopus is "octopuses", not "octopusses".
Also please don't associate making grammatical errors with "being pulled from the ghetto". It makes you sound like you've never been to a real ghetto before; their slang make Wolf and Khaldor seem like Oxford scholars in comparison.
I'm sorry but if you've ever done any kind of public speaking, especially in cases where you can't practice what you will be saying and have to respond to unplanned events, you are going to make some mistakes. Sure some are more common than others, but this thread really is a superiority blog.
"A lot of koreans are..." is perfectly valid grammar, and it makes the ridiculous assertiveness of the OP look dumb as hell.
"A lot of milk was left in the box". OK, because milk is a non-counting noun "A lot of koreans were left in the building". OK, because "koreans" is a counting noun, just like you would say "A lot of books were left in the bag", you don't say "A lot of books was left in the bag".
Saying "A lot of koreans is" is about as dumb as "A lot of milk are".
The octopus discussion is dumb as well. Yes, octopus is originally a greek word, which is why octopodes is a correct plural. So is octopuses. And so is octopi. Why? Because while it's originally a greek word, it's an English word now, where octopuses is the correct plural. Octopi, while technically incorrect, is used by so many people so frequently that it's become acceptable. A good dictionary will list all 3 plural forms as correct, because grammar doesn't define language, language defines grammar.
Since the context of this thread is for esports broadcasts to establish "legitimacy in the eyes of the world", I genuinely wonder if TV broadcasts - presumably the standard esports broadcasts are measured against - use the "a lot of [plural] is" variant.
I laughed @ OP complaining about "A lot of koreans are". Sorry buddy, you lose this one no matter how many dictionary references that you had to look up yourself and didn't know before you can point to. Anyone who says "A lot of koreans is" should be slapped twice and be told to go outside for a change lol
Tobberoth said it best with the comparisons. You are wrong on this one lol
I like how all three of your blogs are a you vs the world type deal where you try to argue about how everyone else is wrong and you're right.
Being right is cool, but you don't have to be right 100% of the time. Just accept that "a lot of koreans is" is NOT right, no matter how you spin it, for reasons which have been elucidated over and over by various posters (I think Tobberoth did it best) in this thread.
"Hyun's so much better than him" is correct. "Hyun's so much better than he is" is also correct. "Hyun's so much better than he" is wrong.
"A lot of Koreans are ___" is correct/incorrect depending on context.
"A lot of Koreans are doing this new build" is correct because Koreans is the subject while "a lot of" is saying how many there are.
"A lot of Koreans is 10 Koreans" is correct because "lot" is the subject and the "of koreans" is describing the lot. Similar to how someone else pointed out "A pride of lions is ___"
Regarding Aren't vs Ain't, the proper way to say it would be I'm not if you insist on using a contraction, but everyone says aren't regardless.
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?
Well, half of the things talked about in the grammar Nazi video including the things you talked about aren't grammatical errors, they are stylistic 'errors', a big difference. The production rules of English grammar cannot derive them being wrong. They simply make text unclear or 'hard to read' on a subjective level. A dangling participle most certainly is not a grammatical error, it's a stylistic one leading to ambiguities, but guess what, the English language is full of ambiguities anyway.
...What? Dangling participles are definitely grammatical errors:
"A dangling modifier is an ambiguous grammatical construct" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dangling_modifier)
"The grammatical problem here..." (http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/WritingGuide/10dangpt.htm)
"They then end up with what’s known as a dangling participle, as in this grammatically incorrect statement: ..." (http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/dangling-participles)
And even if dangling participles weren't *grammatical* errors per se, using them and creating run-on sentences and lacking proper punctuation do not become justified. You learn these things in English class as a child. People often make mistakes when speaking or talking because they're more focused on the context and substance of their conversation, rather than the absolute correctness of their speech. That's life. Sometimes it makes you cringe, but be critical of yourself before being critical of others.
You don't know what the difference between a grammatical and a stylistic error is at all do you? Saying it's an ambiguous grammatical construct has nothing to do with whether or not the error itself is grammatical or stylistic.
I disagree: the problem with dangling modifiers is that they are not ambiguous. There are grammatical rules for determining the subject of a modifier. In the case of a dangling modifier, the subject determined by the rules of syntax conflicts with the subject demanded by the meaning.
On July 21 2013 10:09 SiskosGoatee wrote: ".. makes you seem pretentious to educated people, and 'octopodes' makes uneducated people not even know what you're talking about."
EPT
