Wapsi Square Forum

It makes it worse when you realize that many commonly used words are just 'wrong'...
a 'tapestry' is 'woven cloth', the Bayeux is embroidered.. I guess it is the same calling it 'sellotape', when is not made by that company, but 3M!!

more in QI!!

Sidhekin wrote:Thank you, Warrl. Spot on, except for ...

Warrl wrote:(By the way, if you take a close look at our third-person pronouns - pretty much the only place were English retains grammatical gender - we have FOUR. Male, female, neutral, and non-person. Yes, the difference between "he or she" and "it", or between "them" and "those", is just as much a gender difference as the difference between "he" and "she".)

... "them" vs "those"? That's not a distinction of gender; at least not in any English I learned.

Way I learned it, "those", "these", "that", "this" are demonstrative pronouns. They have a slightly different function, but can be used of the same entities as the personal pronouns.

Point at a group of _____ and say to a subordinate "Take ____ to room 7."

If it's a group of people, saying "those" is insulting because the word is non-person. It's equivalent to referring to a single person as "it". You should say "them". (Or "those people", where explicitly calling them people cancels out the non-person-ness of the pronoun. And in some contexts you can pick up an implied "person/people", e.g. "Take these people to room 3, and those to room 7.".)

If it's a group of cardboard boxes, either "them" or "those" is acceptable. "Them" because it is neutral, "those" because you're using a non-person pronoun for non-persons.

Come to think of it, "that" as a pronoun is also non-person.

What I really wish we had in English third-person pronouns, instead of gender, is relative pronouns... where (for example) "he" is "the person or object most recently identified", "she" is "the person or object identified before that", etc.

Warrl, it depends on culture whether they take that badly or not... If you have a strong character, you would think nothing of it, unless a few four letter words were used...

otherwise, it depends on if it is your boss , wife, or 'crazy friend' or even if you dont want to seem 'weak' to them...

So yes, a statement can be grammatically correct, yet societally wrong and/or offensive...

But as you have mentioned in your comment, this can be alleviated by adding a person-type word after the "that" or "those".

Therefore, "Please show those gentlemen to their quarters" would be quite appropriate (the "those" referring to the fact that there are many gentlemen being pointed to, and they are not next to you), whereas "What? You want me to make friends with those?" definitely shows contempt on the part of the speaker...

yes, English is a confusing language... I know, I have helped many ESL peeps to use it....

lake_wrangler wrote:Therefore, "Please show those gentlemen to their quarters" would be quite appropriate (the "those" referring to the fact that there are many gentlemen being pointed to, and they are not next to you), whereas "What? You want me to make friends with those?" definitely shows contempt on the part of the speaker...

"Please show these gentlemen to their quarters and those to the library."

To whom-ever changed all the dates to 2015-02-20 from the previous = many thanks.

lake_wrangler wrote:Therefore, "Please show those gentlemen to their quarters" would be quite appropriate (the "those" referring to the fact that there are many gentlemen being pointed to, and they are not next to you), whereas "What? You want me to make friends with those?" definitely shows contempt on the part of the speaker...

But the "those" in "those gentlemen" is not a pronoun, as it is not taking the place of a noun. It's just an indicator.

(That's the problem with parts of speech - words keep moving around from one part to another.)

Warrl wrote:

lake_wrangler wrote:Therefore, "Please show those gentlemen to their quarters" would be quite appropriate (the "those" referring to the fact that there are many gentlemen being pointed to, and they are not next to you), whereas "What? You want me to make friends with those?" definitely shows contempt on the part of the speaker...

But the "those" in "those gentlemen" is not a pronoun, as it is not taking the place of a noun. It's just an indicator.

(That's the problem with parts of speech - words keep moving around from one part to another.)

"Indicator" is new to me. Some call that/this/those/these (demonstrative) determiners. Some call them (demonstrative) adjectives. But some even call them (adjective) pronouns … ("Hey, if you can use nouns as adjectives, why not pronouns?")

In my example, though, "those" is certainly a pronoun: "Please show these gentlemen to their quarters and those to the library."

I'm going to be off to work in about 90 minutes, so...

Its Sunday and you guys be bored...

TazManiac wrote:Its Sunday and you guys be bored...

"Word"

DilyV wrote:And who is Stasie? What was she to the Ethetian society that she went into a stasis chamber and not a storage crystal?

just like we called Shelly's Conscience "Connie" or Creepy Girl" until we found out better info, we are calling the female inside the stasis tube "Stacie", we don't have any clue as to what her real name is, or WHY she went into a stasis tube versus a Crystal... maybe because she had a hint that something was wrong with the setup of the system? maybe because the Stargate was farther away than this tube? who knows...

For that matter, I'm still wondering how the six fourth babies that were put into one crystal (that eventually became Kath) missed being dumped into the ocean with the rest of the babies... and how was she ejected from the crystal to be found as ONE baby when the Mapimi complex was found? That had to be an event triggered by sensors detecting someone in the complex. Why only that one crystal and not others?

i can't find it right now, but i think it was when Atsali had just gotten the computer downloaded into her brain and things were still jumbled up, she said that Bud and Brandi tried after about 700-ish? years to release the people from the crystals, and i think she said they started with those six babies to try and separate them, but instead, the sabotage from Thup caused the mass release of the women and babies, and the conscious merging of the males remaining in the crystals. i would assume that they put her into the artificial womb then, and she stayed there like that until the MIB and Air-force personnel found her in the 70's when the missile test crashed there.

though i'm curious, why wasn't she found back then, in the 70's? WHY weren't the MIB curious about the REST of the base? or was Brandi one of the ones leading the expedition, and she steered them AWAY from this portion of it, possibly knowing about the bomb, and not wanting to risk her other plans going up-in-smoke because someone that wasn't supposed to be fiddling with the tube, would accidentally set off the bomb?

Dave wrote:

TazManiac wrote:Its Sunday and you guys be bored...

"Word"

"Dæl"