On 02/02/2015 16:21, Rustom Mody wrote:
On Monday, February 2, 2015 at 9:40:35 PM UTC+5:30, Mark Lawrence wrote:
On 02/02/2015 08:52, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:
Chris Angelico :
On Mon, Feb 2, 2015 at 12:59 PM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
And there are underspecified rules too. What is the plural of octopus? No
fair looking it up in the dictionary.
Standard and well-known piece of trivia, and there are several
options. "Octopodes" is one of the most rigorously formal, but
"octopuses" is perfectly acceptable. "Octopi" is technically
incorrect, as the -us ending does not derive from the Latin.
Your brain's grammar engine will give you the correct answer. It may not
match your English teacher's answer, but the language we are talking
about is not standard English but the dialect you have acquired in
childhood.
Marko
I'd love to see a formal definition for "standard English".
I'd also love to see a formal definition of 'formal'
Elsewhere someone (Marko I think) used the term 'rigorous'
Ive heard it said that formal is more rigorous than 'rigorous'.
And of course the other way round as well ;-)
I'd like to see anybody define 'a' and 'the' without using 'a' and
'the'. Would that be formally rigorous or rigorously formal?
--
My fellow Pythonistas, ask not what our language can do for you, ask
what you can do for our language.
Mark Lawrence
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