Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

[toadman]

dude?? dude!

[Jim Lutz]

Joel is so stinkin' smart he makes my head hurt....

[Califiddler]

"A relative pronoun is not a sine qua non to a relative clause; a relative clause can be indicated by word order."

No, the relative pronoun is the link to what is being modified. Some would argue that the relative pronoun can be "understood", but I am not one of them.

"A relative clause is a subordinate clause that modifies a noun."

Actually, a relative clause can modify a noun, a pronoun or a whole phrase.

"Grammatical correctness of a sentence isn't predicated on intelligibility."

I never said that it was. I was saying that, in addition to rendering the sentence grammatically incorrect, the lack of the relative pronoun made the sentence unintelligible.

"The "who/which" relative pronoun rule for humans and animals isn't absolute: "Morris is a finicky cat who eats nothing but 9Lives® brand cat food." "

Your writing of the sentence doesn't make it correct. According to the sentence, Morris is a cat, not a person, therefore it is not "who".

"Except when it follows a preposition, "whom" is no longer de rigueur in objective case contexts, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, as well as Chomsky, Lasnik, et alia. (Again, not every aspect of English grammar is absolute.)"

In English grammar, the case of a pronoun is determined by its syntax. In the original example, the pronoun was the object of the verb "harass". Therefore the pronoun is in the objective case, which is "whom", not "who".

[Dave Hopping]

All I know is that when the chips are down the buffalo is empty.

[garytelecastor]

I agree with Califiddler, now if only I could understand him.
But...But...I GOT YOUR BACK MAN!!!!

Anyone ever had buffalo burgers? I play casinos in western Minnesota and ND and SD, they have the best BB in the world.
I live for the buffets. Fri is seafood, sat is prime rib or buffalo steak. YUMMMM.

[captain gorgeous]

Originally Posted by neocaster

Wait, it only works because the plural is the same as the singular, so it would be
Badger badgers Badger badgers badger badger Badger badgers.

i realised that after i'd left last night. ah well.

[Big John]

Errrrrrrr, anyone else reminded of this ? .......

[Tony474]

Originally Posted by Joel Terry

Except when it follows a preposition, "whom" is no longer de rigueur in objective case contexts, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, as well as Chomsky, Lasnik, et alia. (Again, not every aspect of English grammar is absolute.)

Joel

Hmm... in that case, non inter alia sum. AFAIC, "whom" should always be used in a direct or indirect objective sense. Pedantic? I?

You may well have encountered this before but here goes anyway:

Smith where Jones had had had had had had had had had had had the examiner's approval

The object is to punctuate the above so that it makes sense.

[chet]

Originally Posted by mark norwine

Marcia, Marcia, Marcia....

Babe babe babe babe babe...

[teledude66]

Originally Posted by Jim Lutz

Joel is so stinkin' smart he makes my head hurt....

Same here, I understand it, but when I read how to understand it, my brain hurts.

[Cheesehead]

Originally Posted by Califiddler

"Except when it follows a preposition, "whom" is no longer de rigueur in objective case contexts, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, as well as Chomsky, Lasnik, et alia. (Again, not every aspect of English grammar is absolute.)"

In English grammar, the case of a pronoun is determined by its syntax. In the original example, the pronoun was the object of the verb "harass". Therefore the pronoun is in the objective case, which is "whom", not "who".

Originally Posted by Tony474

Hmm... in that case, non inter alia sum. AFAIC, "whom" should always be used in a direct or indirect objective sense. Pedantic? I?

In plain English, what Joel is saying is that the use of "whom" in the objective case is disappearing. The idea that "whom" is a fixed, unchanging rule is based on outmoded notions of "correctness" that date all the way back to the eighteenth century.

These notions are based on the belief that language is of divine origin and is therefore perfect in its beginning, but is always in danger of being corrupted. The prescriptive grammarians of this time thought they could fix what they perceived to be the deplorable state of the English language by establishing a system of inflexible rules.

Modern linguists take a more objective, or "descriptive," approach, which recognizes that language is a living, changing thing, a hodgepodge of different dialects that is in constant flux and subject to a variety of influences including immigration, cultural trends, and new technology. For if language wasn’t constantly changing, why would we need 5,000 footnotes to read a Shakespeare play?

This is interesting: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ide...ungrammatical/

[WickedGTR]

I couldn't read the whole sentence.

I'm homophonephobic.

[OutlawSteph1975]

"Say what? Are you talking about me?" Said the buffalo..

[Tony474]

Originally Posted by Cheesehead

In plain English, what Joel is saying is that the use of "whom" in the objective case is disappearing. The idea that "whom" is a fixed, unchanging rule is based on outmoded notions of "correctness" that date all the way back to the eighteenth century.

These notions are based on the belief that language is of divine origin and is therefore perfect in its beginning, but is always in danger of being corrupted. The prescriptive grammarians of this time thought they could fix what they perceived to be the deplorable state of the English language by establishing a system of inflexible rules.

Modern linguists take a more objective, or "descriptive," approach, which recognizes that language is a living, changing thing, a hodgepodge of different dialects that is in constant flux and subject to a variety of influences including immigration, cultural trends, and new technology. For if language wasn’t constantly changing, why would we need 5,000 footnotes to read a Shakespeare play?

This is interesting: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ide...ungrammatical/

I do hope you don't imagine that I didn't realise that - I was, as is sometimes my wont, being contentious on purpose. That is indeed an interesting article, by the way.

English has been evolving both in speech and writing for hundreds of years, although I'm of the opinion that this process has slowed down since the development of printing and more especially since the early eighteenth century.

It was during that period that, as you rightly observe, academics took it upon themselves to construct a formal set of prescriptive grammatical rules with the object of standardising the use of the language in a well-intentioned attempt at achieving uniformity and permanence. Where they went a bit awry was to apply the principles of Latin grammar to the English language, which, despite its vocabulary having been drastically influenced by Norman-French following the Conquest, nevertheless remains a Germanic tongue in its basic structure. This is particularly evident in verb forms.

All the same, it's noteworthy that English has become far less inflected than most other languages - no more case-endings, with the odd exception such as the possessive "'s", no enforced agreement of adjectives, no verb-suffix changes according to person/number except in the 3rd person singular and so on... I wouldn't be astonished if in time to come the last-mentioned falls into disuse too.

Be all this as it may, perhaps it's just me*, but I was brought up and educated to apply certain rules, which I intend to continue to observe. Where's the harm in that? Comparing English with German, for example, where not only do nouns (which are of grammatical rather than natural gender) continue to decline and prepository adjectives have two distinct manners of agreement according to context, but also where correct word order is invariably required, I don't think it's too difficult to get it right and I do think that well-written English is a most expressive and beautiful language.

*Case in point - a de facto disjunctive pronoun. Shouldn't be allowed!

Anyway, changing the subject entirely, here's something particularly for Cockneys and Aussies:

Question: What's the difference between a buffalo and a bison?
Answer: You can't wash your fice in a buffalo...

[Telarkaster]

Originally Posted by toadman

dude?? dude!

This was the only post in this thread that I understood...

[SuzyQ]

I'll be skeered to post anythin, NOW!!

[SuzyQ]

Originally Posted by Skully

It's a fascinating exercise. I think the important point to take away is that, although the sentence is grammatically correct, it fails at its most essential task: communicating to the reader. It's like a complex treatise full of forty dollar words. "Wow, I'm impressed. Now what the hell are you saying?"

Oh my gosh--now I'm hopelessly in love with Skully!!