🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Aug3.151132.6800@Csli.Stanford.EDU> scobbie@Csli.Stanford.EDU (Jim Scobbie) writes:
>
>In article <1992Jul29.065507.16352@leland.Stanford.EDU>
>richwing@leland.Stanford.EDU (Rich Wingerter) writes:
>
>I prefer your other point:
>
>>Also, it looks to me like there may be an ambiguity in how people think about
>>phrases like "anger and frustration".  Perhaps this is one feeling that has
>>multiple aspects.  If it is one feeling, then "There is" is the logical
>>preface.
>
>I feel happier with this, because "are" changes the scope for me, I think.
>As far as I am able to introspect, "there are anger and frustration"
>implies each person is both angry and frustrated. 

It seems to me the statement just says these feelings are about,
and that you are reasoning backward from what your ear likes to some
distinction that isn't there.
> "There is" carries the
>meaning that J is angry but not necessarily frustrated. I feel that using
>"are" almost induces personification: "There are Anger and Frustration"
>here tonight. All in all I don't much like "are" after "there" in this
>existential use.

I find the testimony on how you use and feel about various constructions
interesting, but I find your "justifications" of them strangely
dreamlike. If "is" unites the feelings into one, that implies
even more than "are" that every person feels both, which is the
opposite of what you say at the end of your post (deleted here).
If you feel that talking about Anger and Frustration
somehow personifies them, I can't see how making them a conglomerate
with a singular verb eliminates that feeling. If I say "Envy,
jealousy, and spite are three related feelings that most people
have felt at various times," do you feel I am personifying
Envy et al.?

>
>I also avoid "there are" in a demonstrative use, and "there
>is" I guess, opting for "there's" in most cases.
>
>	(Pointing)There's three buses coming.
>	Here's three buses coming.
>	*Here is three buses coming.
>	(T)here are three buses coming.
>
Again, interesting. But I have offered examples in which the meaning
in your last case is expressed with "There's" : a few more:
"There's lots of reasons why.."; "There's at least fourteen people who
have that information".
If you say "Here's three buses coming," why don't you say (or do you?),
as you see your late friends approaching, "Here they is at last"?
Perhaps a bad case, since "Here" could be taken as a real adverb
there rather than a presenting word. What about "Here's the
long-lost wanderers!" Would you say that? Or "Here's three latecomers"?
(And if no to the first of these, yes to the second, why?)

A BBC announcer today said "as the Olympic Games moves into its
second week." Obviously he thinks of "Olympic Games" as a NAME
for an event, a spectacle, etc., just as British Airways is
the name of an airline. (I mean, HE thinks in a way that
equates these two cases; I don't.) I would like to make two general
points about this. 
1. Discovering that people have some underlying concept or notion
in their heads that makes it in some sense "logical" for them to
use a singular verb (or any other feature of language) simply
confirms that mind usually makes sense, and that language follows
certain rules for the most part, though these may change.
But it doesn't affect a different point: that in _standard_
English, agreement is supposed to be determined by attention
to the form of words and sentences. True, in some cases one can
say that a strong notion overrides what is apparently a clear
form, but usually that is not the case. So when a BBC announcer
says "Games moves," yes, one can say he has a singular concept
of the Games; but one can also say that he is not paying attention
to the forms of the words and the sentence.

2. Writing that intends to communicate precise meanings
in well-formulated standard English is, you might say, "perfected
speech." As such, it is even more obliged to attend to the form
of its sentences than BBC announcers are. If one observes many
"errors of agreement" in writing by professional writers, one
can draw the conclusion that the pattern of verb use in English
is changing in certain cases (especially if the change seems
to be confined to clearly definable sorts of construction),
or one can draw the conclusion that many of the writers either
don't know the standard rules or do not sufficiently attend to them.
Or one can conclude that both these factors are at work. (I happen
to think both are at work, though obviously it isn't always
easy to separate them: each factor might contribute to the operation
of the other).
-- 
Roger Greenwald
Greenwald@hf.uib.no (address valid only until 10 August 1992)