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Baseball Primer Newsblog — The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand Sunday, January 10, 2010Murray Chass On Baseball: BLOGGERS’ TROUBLE WITH ENGLISH AND MATHWhen blogging non-bloggers attack!
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Posted: January 10, 2010 at 12:38 PM | 149 comment(s)
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Is Chass serious? I'll admit that even though I teach college English I occasionally mess up a grammatical rule here and there (who doesn't), but IF using both is wrong in this particular instance strictly according to Hoyle, it is a rule that is so often ignored in usage as to be meaningless: as grammatical "rules" go it's not even on the split infinitive level of significance.
The Phantom Menace and Spiderman both grossed over $400 million.
The Yankees and Red Sox both won 95 games in 2005.
Who would bat an eye? I bet I could find half a dozen worse grammatical errors in the newspaper every day.
Chass, grammar, internet bashing, and baseball.
Behold
Exactly, WJ. Anybody reading the BBA release would have known exactly what the author of it was trying to say. Chass is being extremely vindictive and petty here, which has become norm for him in recent years.
"Last season, according to Bob Waterman of Elias Sports Bureau, the Mariners became the 16th team in the last decade to improve their record by 20 or more wins"
Uh oh spaghettios!!! Someone has a big flat glaring agreement error.
God, there is NOTHING more grating or annoying than the ####### grammar police. Chass is a shitbag of the first order.
I felt once we got him there playing for Tony,” Jocketty continued, refering to manager Tony La Russa, also McGwire’s manager in Oakland, “and Barry Weinberg was the trainer in Oakland, with the fans in St. Louis, he fell in love with the place and probably signed for less than he could have.”
Mr. Chass misspells "referring". He also uses "votegetters" twice, which is not a word.
I guess BBWAA writers have problems with English as well as bloggers.
Of course, if we are going to throw out ad hominems, I doubt Chass could pass a standard seventh grade algebra test.
I suspect Chass's blog is riddled with errors of every type. He likely forgets he doesn't have an editor to help him out anymore.
Each of Wj's sentences is a better sentence with "each" in place of "both". Nothing is lost by using "each", but precision is gained. The risk in using "each" is that one will fail to remember to use the singular verb with "each". I suspect this is what has caused "each" to receed from common usage -- students repeatedly having essays red-marked each time they used "each" decided to avoid the word altogether.
And, of course, none of this has any bearing on the validity of bloggers or the BBA's vote vs. ex-newspapermen or the BBWAA's election.
Facility has little to do with linguistic evolution. The fact that our language no longer employs the second person singular pronouns certainly makes the language less facile, as does the loss of inflections altogether. Languages seem to evolve towards more simplicity, not more facility or versatility. If a failure to distinguish between each and both causes confusion once in a blue moon, and I don't deny that it does, it doesn't nearly as often as our lack of second person singular/plural pronouns. But, you're right, Cuban X Senators, it IS a mistake and there's nothing wrong with correcting it in certain contexts...like, say if you're editing a newspaper or proofreading your doctoral dissertation. But Chass is just being a git.
I used to get annoyed when I heard people say "often" with a "t" sound. The funny thing is that they usually say it in situations where they are trying to speak more formally, like presentations and television interviews. But I've given that one up and now accept that in 100 years everyone is going to say "off-tuhn" except for Shakespearean actors.
Not to defend Chass but there is absolutely nothing wrong with this.
There's nothing wrong with using the passive voice, but Chass uses it in practically every sentence!
For the semicolon, it just seems awkward as the first part makes a really stupid-sounding independent clause. Then again, I haven't picked up my CMS in years.
If you do a write-up on grammar and put in some criticisms of Chass's behavior, I'll make it an actual entry and post it as a response to Chass (and pass around the link). Such assholery should be #####-slapped.
"As for the alleged error you say I made, "their" refers to 16 teams."
Is he serious? The antecedent of "their" can't possibly be "16 teams" because 16 teams appears nowhere in the sentence. The antecedent of "their" is "sixteenth team" not "sixteen teams." What a #########.
- Brock Hanke (professional proofreader when there's work, which doesn't imply that I get everything posted here right)
Chass reminds me of a disinherited son who can't come to grips with the fact that he's now on his own, and that his daddy isn't going to be there to bail him out when he goes on one of his binges. I get the strong feeling that he thinks that his dismissal from the Times is just a bad dream.
(I never read blogs)
I call BS. First grade?! No way. (and I have taught elementary school)
Now, now -- I pronounce the "t," so by definition doing so is correct. (To be honest, I'm not really sure why it's not. The "t" in "oft" is pronounced, no?)
Does anyone on earth pronounce "forte" as "fort"? That is, I believe, correct, but it certainly sounds stupid.
"For-tay" is given for the music term -- a separate entry.
Then of course we have primer=primmer
And "of-ten," most likely -- four-plus decades of habit would be awfully hard to break.
Now, if I can figure out why (contrary to the same Webster's; I just looked it up), certain allegedly cultured types say "pome" (or so it sounds to my ears) instead of "po-em" ...
I say it without the 't' sound but I don't even remember why. I think I heard it somewhere that it's more correct at some point. Plus, it takes less effort to say it without the 't' sound!
whale: hwael (ae is actually the ash, the conjoined ae that is pronounced like the a in "ash")
what: hwaet (first word of Beowulf)
where: hwaer
to whistle: hwistlian
etc.
Here's one thing I've been wondering. When I was just a boy in the 1980's, early 90's, I learned that "disinterested" meant "impartial, objective," and definitely not "uninterested." And these days, whenever anyone uses it, it seems to mean "uninterested". What's up with that? Did I learn wrong?
As is the "t" in "fast", but rarely in the States does one hear a "t" in "fasten".
I'll say "often" and "offen" pretty much as WJ breaks it down.
It's "recede" not "receed."
Touche.
Which I believe is pronounced as in the French, and not to rhyme with a word to describe Murray (and other meticulous grammarians).
As a former New Jersey all-state fencer I can confirm that it is "toosh," not too-shay.
You lie!
Damn you & your unassailable logic!
You really are a touche-bag today.
That's "Egbert Sousè, accent grave over the e" to you
Ditto on both counts.
Language Mavens
Gee, I'd like to have a nose like that full of nickels!
Linky
Another linky
This pronunciation was still considered "correct" at least into the 1950s.
Mmmmn... "toosh"
"I been bad, I been good
Dallas, Texas, Hollywood.
I ain't asking for much.
I said, Lord, take me downtown,
I'm just lookin' for some tush."
I am in no way a disinterested student. I appreciate all the lessons in the English language - your efforts to slow the tide of language devolution are commendable. But living languages are at the mercy of any damn fool who can speak them.
I admit to having some small sympathy for Chass. I also have a certain fascination towards such a bold display of asshattery. It must be a blow to his ego to be relegated to blogging after so many years in the Big Leagues of sports journalism. Getting sent back down to the minors must surely be a bitter pill for Chass and his venom is the product of his demotion.
It's too bad he can't try and help out or encourage younger, aspiring sports journalists to "see the light" rather than insulting and dismissing them.
I can't help you with Either/Neither, but "often" is actually very interesting. It's an example of shifting language. Ask anyone over the age of 55 to pronounce the word. 90% will pronounce it off-en (the technically correct pronunciation).
In the 35-55 age range, pronunciation is varied, with probably 60% pronouncing it "off-en".
In the younger than 35 age range, "Oft-ten" is much more common, probably 70% or so. This is all from around 3 years ago when I wrote a paper on it in a linguistics class.
In 20 years, much like Gay Marriage, Oft-ten will be the default pronunciation. I'm not sure which of those two statements terrifies your grandparents more.
To stay on topic: Murray Chass is a #########.
Verily, thou doth jest.
We all read Chass's response to the alliance's founder, and I found it ironic and hilarious that his e-mail about the mistakes Daniel made in the press release was riddled with typos and spelling errors. Chass is a tool. He very easily could have made that a teaching moment and helped those of us who are passionate about baseball improve our contributions to the Internet, but instead he dished out a cyber spanking and proved how petty he is. On the other hand, we'll be more careful in the future, so I guess he did teach us something after all.
The unforgivable statement is here:
The problem with the society is the lack of sharing for public consumption. Much of our public opinion is driven by financial interests that subvert EDIT: free and honest exchange of ideas. While sometimes the ideas that are shared are half-baked and unhelpful, that's still a great trade-off.
from scientific talks:
NUCyular
phage (pronounced f-a-a-a-jh)
protein pronounced as "protean"
no-MEN-clature
(#2 & 4 are standard limey pronunciations)
My high school chemistry did this, as well as "nuculus." Bothered me to no end.
Fortunately for the BBA, Chass' public mention of the release and HOF voting just brings more attention to our organization. While the press release may have been a little rough, much of the work done by members on the BBA site (and on our own sites) is excellent. People who check us out because of his criticism will find that out quickly, and make him look like an even bigger dousche than he already does. I call that a win-win.
pronounced like "Duchy", I presume
Since this is the grammar correction folder, it's spelled "diphthong." And it should be pronounced "Dif-thong" not "Dip-thong"
I went to a funeral of an old family friend. The son of the deceased gave a short speech he wrote about his father. The son is the farthest thing from an articulate, thoughtful speaker you could imagine. But the heartfelt words he shared about his dad yielded one of the most moving, eloquent tributes I had ever heard anyone give.
Off-entimes it's best to try to forgive the errors in execution if the result is a labor of passion for the topic.
Like sex education promotes unbridled promiscuity, this theory will only serve to further encourage me to "contribute" more nonsense to BTF.
re: #69 a list of 'phth" words
I like dip-thong because it can credibly sound like an insult. "Don't you know how to pronounce things you Dip-thong!?"
but, soft!
in Ohio, we said "ornj" (1 syllable)
when I moved to the east, many people said "AH-rinje"
I laughed out loud at this.
when I moved to the east, many people said "AH-rinje"
My wife is from western Michigan and I'm from NJ, we make fun of each other for this kind of stuff all the time.
She pronounces Mayonnaise as two syllables= MAN-aze.
She makes fun of the way I say Orange, Florida, and Donkey Kong.
When she says the words marry, Mary, and merry, they all sound the same.
amazing!! 35 years ago I had that same discussion with an old girlfriend, who was from Long Island
(NOT pronounced lon-GUYland, BTW)
I pronounced them all the same and she didn't
(that's not why we broke up, though)
I stumbled on this point for a few minutes. He is right that the "rule," as I had been taught, is that the number to the right of the number which is rounded up must be 5 or more. However, I had this feeling that I had seen a number like 74.468 rounded up many times by people who are accountants and economists. Then I went to my excel spreadsheet and entered .74468 and then formatted for percentage (%). The excel spreadsheet rounded 74% to 75%.
I would add that I consider the issue of rounding to be convention; it's not a mathematical law or fact.
I am an economist, and I too have seen this. Apparently, there's a school of thought that the way to round is to round off each digit - so first you round 74.468 to 74.47, then you round that to 74.5, and then, lo and behold, 74.5 rounds to 75%. Having majored in math in college, I have to say that this drives me insane. That's wrong, dammit!
I understand what you're saying, but the number 74.468 is, in fact, closer in value to 74 than it is 75.
Also, my version of Excel (Excel 2007) correctly rounds 0.74468 to 74%.
Sure, the BBA was conducting their own vote in hopes of getting some publicity. But let's not forget the COUNTLESS BBWAA who made their votes public on their own sites OR the five dolts that left their ballots blank and talked about it. Better yet, let's not forget the blogger that attacks a 100+ member strong blogging alliance.
I mean, if someone is out there looking for publicity...let's start there.
Sorry, I made a typographic error, and when I corrected it, the rounding was correct. (That's a stupid mistake.) However, as I said, I have seen some people who work with numbers, and should know better, round incorrectly.
My Excel doesn't do that. It says 74%. On the other hand, if you round it to one decimal, it's 74.5%. If someone rounded to the tenths place, then distributed the numbers, someone else might round the numbers again and get 75%. But of course, there's the issue of significant digits as well.
Hmm, I also majored in math in college, and I don't recall ever having to round a number :)
Dictionaries agree with you. The preferred term is "vote getter." However, new compound words arise in our lexicon when influential writers or editors decide a concept makes more sense as a new word. I don't think that has happened with "votegetter." I searched the term on Google books, which includes magazine articles, and could not find an example of "votegetter" as a single word. It is either hyphenated or used as two words.
When she says the words marry, Mary, and merry, they all sound the same.
- well of COURSE they do. how else would they sound???
amazing!! 35 years ago I had that same discussion with an old girlfriend, who was from Long Island
(NOT pronounced lon-GUYland, BTW)
of course not
it is pronounced lawng ah-linn. if it really WAS a GUYland, i might could need to check it out
If you pronounce them all differently, it goes like this:
Mary - the a sound is similar to ones found in hair, flail. In other words, ai.
Merry - the e sound is the one found in den, wet.
Marry - the a sound is the one found in cat, has. My own dealings with the Mary, Merry, Mary conunudrum suggests that it's quite possible that your tongue won't allow you to say that particular a sound in front of the letter r.
I was born in an area where pronouncing them separately was the rule, and moved where folks might pronounce Mary and Merry differently, but don't make any distinction between Mary and Marry. And having been here 20-plus years, I have to catch myself from making the ai sound in words like Marry.
As someone above indicated, I rounded each digit. I was sure that I'd seen that done before and even asked one of my coworkers about it. If I'd looked at the bigger picture, maybe I'd have realized my mistake.
I still contend, as most of you have indicated, that Mr. Chass could have been, shall we say, much more diplomatic in his corrections. Especially when he misspelled numerous words in his response to us. That said, he was correct in his points, if not his tone, and we've taken some steps to hopefully not have that happen again.
But, in the vein of "there is no bad publicity", we are always looking for new members. Check out our web site (www.baseballbloggersalliance.com) and drop us an e-mail. Assuming you can handle having such a doofus as an organizer.
"Different strokes for different folks" is fine, says a guy married/merried/maryed to a woman who pronounces all three the same way,
Note that it was not "The BBWAA" that decided not to round up to 75, but was the Board of Directors of the Hall. Chass still doesn't seem to understand that the BBWAA couldn't blow its nose with a ballot if the Board of Directors didn't give it permission. All of the BBWAA election rules, and all of the powers of the BBWAA in connection with the election, are set out by the Board of Directors.
- well of COURSE they do. how else would they sound???
Normal?
I went out with a girl who made fun of the way I said mozzarella.
And is still used by the braying horsey/country house/slone ranger set in the UK
Was she Italian? Many Italian-Americans (I'm half) tend to pronounce it Italiano style. Ricotta is another word that gets criticized for its pronunciation.
I was raised on Long Island and pronounce the first two the same, but not the last one.
I don't think anybody pronounces it that way in my family, though I do recall many people who did and still do.
Hey, does mean that east of Manhattan they don't call those cute little rodents skWUHH-rels any more?
That irritates the hell out of me. You're having a simple conversation with someone and suddenly they have to act like they're in downtown Rome. Just call it Mozzarella for cryin' out loud.
Just above that, in the previous paragraph, he says that if 75 percent of 539 votes cast is 404.25. And, so, in order to be elected, a player must get 405 votes.
I get the difference. Everything is rounded conservatively. Sometimes it's down, sometimes it's up. No loopholes. But, still, to say that rounding follows some immutable, God-given mathematical rule is clearly BS. So if it is some sort of special facility with math that you're looking for, Chass is not your guy.
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