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digitalmars.D - [OT] grammar

reply Steven Schveighoffer <schveiguy gmail.com> writes:
I always look at  safe as the word "safe", not "at-safe". But I see a 
lot of people writing stuff like:

"You should put an  safe tag on it"

which reads horribly to me:

"You should put an safe tag on it"

Am I the only one who cringes to read this? I bite my tongue and don't 
respond normally, because I'm sure that people read it the other way.

-Steve
Mar 26 2020
next sibling parent ag0aep6g <anonymous example.com> writes:
On 26.03.20 16:24, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:

 I always look at  safe as the word "safe", not "at-safe". But I see a 
 lot of people writing stuff like:
 
 "You should put an  safe tag on it"
 
 which reads horribly to me:
 
 "You should put an safe tag on it"
 
 Am I the only one who cringes to read this? I bite my tongue and don't 
 respond normally, because I'm sure that people read it the other way.


I'm one of those people. I like to distinguish " safe" from "safe", so I 
do read " safe" as "at-safe".

Examples:

By design, a safe function cannot always be an  safe function.
Due to compiler bugs, an  safe function may not be a safe function.
Mar 26 2020
prev sibling next sibling parent "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh quickfur.ath.cx> writes:
On Thu, Mar 26, 2020 at 11:24:01AM -0400, Steven Schveighoffer via
Digitalmars-d wrote:

 I always look at  safe as the word "safe", not "at-safe". But I see a
 lot of people writing stuff like:
 
 "You should put an  safe tag on it"
 
 which reads horribly to me:
 
 "You should put an safe tag on it"
 
 Am I the only one who cringes to read this? I bite my tongue and don't
 respond normally, because I'm sure that people read it the other way.


[...]

I also read the   as a "silent  ". :-P

But I tend to ignore grammatical errors these days. I wouldn't survive
very long online if I reacted to every grammatical error I came across
on the Internet, y'know? ;-)


T

-- 
Talk is cheap. Whining is actually free. -- Lars Wirzenius
Mar 26 2020
prev sibling next sibling parent Patrick Schluter <Patrick.Schluter bbox.fr> writes:
On Thursday, 26 March 2020 at 15:24:01 UTC, Steven Schveighoffer 
wrote:

 I always look at  safe as the word "safe", not "at-safe". But I 
 see a lot of people writing stuff like:

 "You should put an  safe tag on it"

 which reads horribly to me:

 "You should put an safe tag on it"

 Am I the only one who cringes to read this? I bite my tongue 
 and don't respond normally, because I'm sure that people read 
 it the other way.


No, you're not alone. The an  safe also hurt my eyes, and I'm not 
even a native English speaker (French & German bilingual).
Mar 27 2020
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Jonathan M Davis <newsgroup.d jmdavisprog.com> writes:
On Thursday, March 26, 2020 9:24:01 AM MDT Steven Schveighoffer via 
Digitalmars-d wrote:

 I always look at  safe as the word "safe", not "at-safe". But I see a
 lot of people writing stuff like:

 "You should put an  safe tag on it"

 which reads horribly to me:

 "You should put an safe tag on it"

 Am I the only one who cringes to read this? I bite my tongue and don't
 respond normally, because I'm sure that people read it the other way.


Actually, I'm surprised that anyone would effectively ignore the  .
Personally, I definitely consider it to be at-safe and not safe, since it's
 safe, not safe. And that's how I would refer to it in any verbal
conversation.

- Jonathan M Davis
Mar 30 2020
next sibling parent reply =?UTF-8?Q?Ali_=c3=87ehreli?= <acehreli yahoo.com> writes:
On 3/30/20 4:39 PM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:

 at-safe and not safe, since it's
  safe, not safe. And that's how I would refer to it in any verbal
 conversation.
=20
 - Jonathan M Davis
=20
=20
=20


Same here.

While we're off-topic, let's talk about what scratches my ears most: =E2=80=
=9Can=20
his=C2=ADtoric event=E2=80=9D. Nooo! :) My Turkishness requires sounding =
that 'h'=20
well, so it should be "a historic event". :)

Ali
Mar 30 2020
next sibling parent Jonathan M Davis <newsgroup.d jmdavisprog.com> writes:
On Monday, March 30, 2020 6:31:35 PM MDT Ali Çehreli via Digitalmars-d 
wrote:

 On 3/30/20 4:39 PM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:

 at-safe and not safe, since it's
  safe, not safe. And that's how I would refer to it in any verbal
 conversation.

 - Jonathan M Davis


 Same here.

 While we're off-topic, let's talk about what scratches my ears most: “an
 his­toric event”. Nooo! :) My Turkishness requires sounding that 'h'
 well, so it should be "a historic event". :)


Well, that stems from how it _used_ to not have the h sound (coming from the
French word, histoire, which has no h sound), but yeah, given that history
is definitely pronounced with an h in modern English, it should definitely
be "a" history/historic/etc. and not "an" history/historic/etc. now. Some
schools may still teach "an history" though. It can take a while for some of
that stuff to shift.

- Jonathan M Davis
Mar 30 2020
prev sibling parent "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh quickfur.ath.cx> writes:
On Mon, Mar 30, 2020 at 06:43:35PM -0600, Jonathan M Davis via Digitalmars-d
wrote:

 On Monday, March 30, 2020 6:31:35 PM MDT Ali Çehreli via Digitalmars-d 
 wrote:


[...]

 While we're off-topic, let's talk about what scratches my ears most:
 “an his­toric event”. Nooo! :) My Turkishness requires sounding that
 'h' well, so it should be "a historic event". :)


 
 Well, that stems from how it _used_ to not have the h sound (coming
 from the French word, histoire, which has no h sound), but yeah, given
 that history is definitely pronounced with an h in modern English, it
 should definitely be "a" history/historic/etc. and not "an"
 history/historic/etc. now. Some schools may still teach "an history"
 though. It can take a while for some of that stuff to shift.


[...]

I've never heard of anyone recommending "an history", but then again,
hyper-correcting oneself is a known phenomenon in linguistics, where
sometimes people retroactively reconstruct a supposedly more accurate /
historical / etc form that actually never existed historically.


T

-- 
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
Mar 30 2020
prev sibling parent norm <norm.rowtree gmail.com> writes:
On Monday, 30 March 2020 at 23:39:17 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote:

 On Thursday, March 26, 2020 9:24:01 AM MDT Steven Schveighoffer 
 via Digitalmars-d wrote:

 I always look at  safe as the word "safe", not "at-safe". But 
 I see a lot of people writing stuff like:

 "You should put an  safe tag on it"

 which reads horribly to me:

 "You should put an safe tag on it"

 Am I the only one who cringes to read this? I bite my tongue 
 and don't respond normally, because I'm sure that people read 
 it the other way.


 Actually, I'm surprised that anyone would effectively ignore 
 the  . Personally, I definitely consider it to be at-safe and 
 not safe, since it's  safe, not safe. And that's how I would 
 refer to it in any verbal conversation.

 - Jonathan M Davis


I interpret the ' ' as referring to "attribute", i.e. 
attribute-safe as opposed to at-safe. Reading through this thread 
I see I'm in the minority :)

/Norm
Mar 30 2020
prev sibling parent Jonathan M Davis <newsgroup.d jmdavisprog.com> writes:
On Monday, March 30, 2020 11:07:06 PM MDT H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d 
wrote:

 On Mon, Mar 30, 2020 at 06:43:35PM -0600, Jonathan M Davis via 


Digitalmars-d wrote:

 On Monday, March 30, 2020 6:31:35 PM MDT Ali Çehreli via Digitalmars-d



 wrote:


 [...]


 While we're off-topic, let's talk about what scratches my ears most:
 “an his­toric event”. Nooo! :) My Turkishness requires sounding that
 'h' well, so it should be "a historic event". :)


 Well, that stems from how it _used_ to not have the h sound (coming
 from the French word, histoire, which has no h sound), but yeah, given
 that history is definitely pronounced with an h in modern English, it
 should definitely be "a" history/historic/etc. and not "an"
 history/historic/etc. now. Some schools may still teach "an history"
 though. It can take a while for some of that stuff to shift.


 [...]

 I've never heard of anyone recommending "an history", but then again,
 hyper-correcting oneself is a known phenomenon in linguistics, where
 sometimes people retroactively reconstruct a supposedly more accurate /
 historical / etc form that actually never existed historically.


It was taught that way when I was in elementary school in the 80's (at least
where I went to school). If you do a search on it, it's clearly the case
that at minimum, historical gets pronounced without an h in some accents and
that it used to be more common to pronunce it that way. It's less clear if
much of anyone would pronounce history without an h at this point or how
recently it would have been common, though given its French origin, it's
pretty much a given that it was pronounced that way at some point.

Regardless, I think that the rules are pretty clear in that if the h is
pronounced at the beginning of a word, then its article should be a, and if
the h is not pronounced, then it should be an. The issues with a vs an with
words like history or historical therefore come primarily from changes in
pronounciation over time and/or differences in pronunciation in different
parts of the world. The English can't speak proper English like we Americans
can after all. ;)

- Jonathan M Davis
Mar 30 2020