To the VP Candidates

[gnomi]

To Ms. Palin: It's nook-lee-y'r, not nook-you-lar. Please make a note of this.

To Mr. Biden: It's different from, not different than (in most cases).

Before we reach beyond partisan politics, we must be able to reach grammatical clarity.

Thank you.

Comments

[perpet.livejournal.com]

I love you.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Awwww. :-)

[perpet.livejournal.com]

Oh, you'll enjoy this:

I had The Husband grab Strunk and White the other night to do a check on that/which [one of ongoing sticking points I have], and he flipped through it a bit and went, "Wow, this is good. I should read this."

I could only nod vigorously.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I love S&W, though they're very limited in their scope.

If you want a good usage guide for American English, I strongly recommend Garner's Modern American Usage by Bryan Garner.

[perpet.livejournal.com]

Oh, excellent. I've not had that one recommended to me before. I like S&W because most of my basic questions can be answered with it, and it's easier to flip through than my copy of A Writer's Reference by Hacker.

[cbpotts.livejournal.com]

She's trying to do some clever language things. She's failing, mind you, but watching her trying to attain linguistic precision...

Well, it's rather like watching someone hammer spaghetti through a wall.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

She's trying to be folksy, and I'm not sure that is at all the best strategy.

I like the phrase "watching someone hammer spaghetti through the wall."

[cbpotts.livejournal.com]

It is REALLY HARD to combine folksy and intelligent. Often, down-home talk is an immediate verbal flag that 'we're not too bright in these parts'. So you're handicapping yourself in an area that she, frankly, wasn't too strong to begin with. I mean, I understand WHY she's doing it. But it still is troublesome.

And now, having just written the second to last chapter of the ghost book o' doom, I am going to bed. The morning comes early.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

The person I think best managed to combine folksy and intelligent was Tim Russert.

Man, I miss that man.

[violetcheetah.livejournal.com]

i just use that phrase.

[violetcheetah.livejournal.com]

err. 'must' use.

[bear-left.livejournal.com]

Are you and my housemate actually talking about this, or is the coincidence just too perfect? :)

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Your housemate and I have not been in touch on this, but we are one in our support of clarity of language. :-)

[glishara.livejournal.com]

Thaaaaaaank you!

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I aim to please, ma'am!

[glishara.livejournal.com]

They were causing me pain!

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

You and me both!

[glishara.livejournal.com]

Your post was a most welcome palliative.

Comfort, but no cure. :(

[madknits.livejournal.com]

What is fascinating is that you, d2leddy and I all posted it at the same time!

LOL

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

::snerk::

Why does this not surprise me one bit?

[lordavon.livejournal.com]

*applause*

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

::curtsies::

[madknits.livejournal.com]

She parrots the buzz phrases very well.
She ducks questions and issues.
She is a lying sack of chazzerai.
It's not so much that she is evil, she's just a stooge, and a tiresomely monotonous one at that.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

She as much as said she was going to throw out the rules of debate and say what she wanted to say.

And every time she mispronounces "nuclear," she reminds me of George W. Bush.

[violetcheetah.livejournal.com]

i believe it was on 'countdown with keith olbermann' that a guest said she was like dubya with lipstick and high heels. causing olbermann to say pretty much "thanks for that image."

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

::snerk::

[popfiend.livejournal.com]

You are the Grammar Dominatrix!!!

:)

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

::cracks Grammar whip::

:-)

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

"Also"

The Palin "Ummm".

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

She has some verbal tics that are *extremely* grating.

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

Also. :-)

Her accent is not charming to me, and her constant self-interruptions as parentheticals (demarked by tone of voice change) make her written transcripts sound oh look a puppy.

[rain-herself.livejournal.com]

I love that icon more than anything ever.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I got it from a friend.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes - every time she said "nuculer" I flinched. Does not build confidence...

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

And it was, in a way she really probably didn't want, evocative of G.W. Bush.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that had occurred to me as well... I wonder whether she even knew it was incorrect. Most likely not. Scary.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

:D

You know... I love you :D

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

:-)

::blushes::

[thudthwacker.livejournal.com]

It seems a reasonable baseline: if you cannot say "nuclear weapons," you are not allowed to control nuclear weapons. As a consolation prize, you can have all the nucular weapons you want. Not that I'm entirely sure what they are; possibly they're made out of parsnips. In any case, they're in Romania, so off you go.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Oh, I *like* that idea.

And parsnips for everyone! A parsnip in every pot!

[seborn.livejournal.com]

I'm going to argue harder for getting parsnips at the next farmers' market now.

[autotruezone.livejournal.com]

I've been wondering about the "different than" usage. I always use "different from", but "different than" has become so common that I'll bet most descriptivists are already considering it to be a valid usage.

I'm with you on "nucular", though. I don't understand how anyone who looks at the word "nuclear" can think it's pronounced that way.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Bryan Garner (in A Dictionary of Modern American Usage) has what to say on "different than" vs. "different from." In part, he says:

Different than is often considered inferior to different from. The problem is that than should follow a comparative adjective (e.g., larger than, sooner than, etc.), and different is not comparative--though, to be sure, it is a word of contrast. Than implies a comparison, i.e., a matter of degree; but differences are ordinarily qualitative, not quantitative, and the adjective different is not strictly comparative. Thus, writers should generally prefer different from--e.g.: "He performed to everything from jazz to the bossa nova to Brahms and Scarlatti, establishing a style very different from that of Bill (Bojangles) Robinson, Fred Astaire and the Nicholas Brothers." "Paul Draper," Dayton Daily News, 21 Sept. 1996, at 3B.

(p.206)

[autotruezone.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm well aware of what the grammar and usage books say. But these days, I tend to hear "different than" a lot more often than "different from". About the only people I ever hear say "different from" are intellectuals and literary types.

[caryabend.livejournal.com]

Well, they did call it off in MI.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

The linguist Geoffrey Nunberg has an interesting column on the subject (http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~nunberg/nucular.html).