2 days ago
2
It is we, the Grammar Police; will ye allow us to proceed?: Reply
| ← Previous revision | Revision as of 17:41, 4 July 2025 | ||
| Line 303: | Line 303: | ||
:::::::Oh! Hadn't thunk of it that way. Anyway, I was just talking about minor (narrowspread?) consequences, unlikely side effects. The goal here, my only one, is to abide by the "use formal English" rule of Wikipedia, to broaden its scope, yet again grow its reach, by ridding our articles of phrasings like "it was them who did it" and "claimed to be her, but weren't", because they are inherently informal and traditionally incorrect (it's a misusage of ''be'', mistaking it for other verbs that take an object, which should have no place in an encyclopedia).<br/>[[User:Bytekast|'''Bytekast''']]<sup>[ [[User_talk:Bytekast|TLK]] : [[Special:Contributions/Bytekast|CON]] : [[Special:Logs/Bytekast|LOG]] ]</sup> 17:14, 4 July 2025 (UTC) |
:::::::Oh! Hadn't thunk of it that way. Anyway, I was just talking about minor (narrowspread?) consequences, unlikely side effects. The goal here, my only one, is to abide by the "use formal English" rule of Wikipedia, to broaden its scope, yet again grow its reach, by ridding our articles of phrasings like "it was them who did it" and "claimed to be her, but weren't", because they are inherently informal and traditionally incorrect (it's a misusage of ''be'', mistaking it for other verbs that take an object, which should have no place in an encyclopedia).<br/>[[User:Bytekast|'''Bytekast''']]<sup>[ [[User_talk:Bytekast|TLK]] : [[Special:Contributions/Bytekast|CON]] : [[Special:Logs/Bytekast|LOG]] ]</sup> 17:14, 4 July 2025 (UTC) |
||
::::::::While [[Linguistic description|others]] would likely posit that no mistake or misuse has occurred. I would, and do. We may fundamentally disagree on this, which is fine, but other editors may be more amenable. [[Special:Contributions/fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four|fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four]] ([[User talk:fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four|talk]]) 17:31, 4 July 2025 (UTC) |
::::::::While [[Linguistic description|others]] would likely posit that no mistake or misuse has occurred. I would, and do. We may fundamentally disagree on this, which is fine, but other editors may be more amenable. [[Special:Contributions/fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four|fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four]] ([[User talk:fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four|talk]]) 17:31, 4 July 2025 (UTC) |
||
:::::::::What's more important here, what I am focusing on in advancing my intention, is propriety and impropriety in the context of formal standard English, which is the variety or register we use here in our texts. (I am 60% a descriptivist myself, by the way.) Outside such contexts, it is absolutely okay to break the be-rule, the whom-rule, among others. In fact it'd be awkward if [[Mario]] were to say "It's I, Mario!", since he's an Italian immigrant (English is only his second language) from a children's game (colloquial context).<br/>[[User:Bytekast|'''Bytekast''']]<sup>[ [[User_talk:Bytekast|TLK]] : [[Special:Contributions/Bytekast|CON]] : [[Special:Logs/Bytekast|LOG]] ]</sup> 17:41, 4 July 2025 (UTC) |
|||
:To be honest, I'm having trouble following all the details here (TIL that copulative verbs are a thing). It would be useful if you could provide a few specific examples (before and after) from articles of changes you propose making. [[User:RoySmith|RoySmith]] [[User Talk:RoySmith|(talk)]] 11:37, 4 July 2025 (UTC) |
:To be honest, I'm having trouble following all the details here (TIL that copulative verbs are a thing). It would be useful if you could provide a few specific examples (before and after) from articles of changes you propose making. [[User:RoySmith|RoySmith]] [[User Talk:RoySmith|(talk)]] 11:37, 4 July 2025 (UTC) |
||
::I provided some examples in the text (like Billy the Kid). For you, here are some perfect, real-life (or real-wikipedia) examples taken from random articles, according to my search: |
::I provided some examples in the text (like Billy the Kid). For you, here are some perfect, real-life (or real-wikipedia) examples taken from random articles, according to my search: |
||
