Gotten

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Come on chaps... How come no one's stepped in to say that it's ok to start with a preposition....
It's ending a sentence with a preposition that's frowned upon.
Winston Churchill is reputed to have said " that's the sort of behaviour up with which I will not put".
 
Who or whom? I just wrote this elsewhere - She'd worked there for thirty years so I expect they knew who she was.
It probably should be whom, but whom just looks wrong.
No, I think that sentence was right...it works with 'who' but wouldn't work with 'whom'. It not only looks wrong, it sounds wrong too.
 
My tuppence with the benefit of an Oxford first in English and 25 years as a professional writer and editor (and a certain amount of joy that after a quarter of a century I can cite it): FWIW, probably sweet FA, communication is the point and the best thing about English is how and how much it changes. People often worry about correctness and very seldom consider fun.

I wrote a whole essay in undergraduate finals about words like "gamahuching" and had a very enjoyable exploration of notions of the obscene in doing so; that word isn't used any more, which is a shame as it's a lot of fun to say, but only because of that am I able to gain so much joy from discovering it. English has more words than any other language, many times the amount you can use in French or German, at least partly because rather than trying to safeguard and ossify itself like French does, it happily steals language from elsewhere and moves on, with a je ne sais quoi that makes it fun to play with.

Any prejudice against neologisms like "gotten" (which I also really strongly dislike) is fine, but has to be recognised for what it is, which is tribalism about certain ways of writing and speaking. Because you're allowed to do almost whatever you like with English (certain technical fields excepted for which precision is important), and its nature means very few rules remain constantly applicable – look at the spelling vs the phonetics and figure out how the spoken word "fish" could arguably be written "ghoti." Then get on a forum and spend hours arguing about it with strangers, but take a moment to recognise that you're enjoying yourself as you do, and you wouldn't be able to do that if there really was a proper binding Right and Wrong to worry about.
Well, I want youy're sniffing...
 
Who or whom? I just wrote this elsewhere - She'd worked there for thirty years so I expect they knew who she was.
It probably should be whom, but whom just looks wrong.
I think it has to be "who" because of "she".
If the pronoun was "her" (which obviously doesn't work here), then it would be "whom".
 
I wonder if any language pedant, ever wrote a good book. Except, maybe one on grammar and punctuation. :giggle:
 
Bill Bryson’s a bit of a stickler for language.
It's not really essential to the meaning. If you wrote "to who shall I send the subscription" you'd still be understood, even though you'd started a sentence with a preposition...
Yes. I’d go further, and say “who shall I write the prescription to?” There’s no particular reason not to end with a preposition. I think the rule came from some bloke’s book on English usage a very long time ago.

“Who shall I write the prescription to? What’s it for?”

Versus

“To whom shall I write the prescription? For what is it?”
^ Sounds a bit Yoda, to me.
 
The problem for me with whom in phrasing such as 'To whom shall I write the prescription', or 'To whom shall I send the subscription' is that whoever said it or wrote it maybe appears a bit up themselves and pretentious. I don't care if whom is the right word in such a sentence, but I do care if you come across as an admirably ignorable supercilious leg-end, if you get my drift. Slainte.
 
Much more natural to ask - who should I send the subscription to. And the preposition rule can the **** get to.
 
I think the rule came from some bloke’s book on English usage a very long time ago.
From what I've read learned scholars several hundred years ago decided that the standard of English was going downhill and need re Latinising. I suspect it came from pedants using Latin as a starting point - the preposition isn't a seperate word in Latin. Just the same as split infinite - we mustn't split infinitives in English simply because the Latin infinitive can't be split.
 
I read a letter in The Times some years ago from a chap who ran a business that needed very precise translations in its documents (he didn't say which field he was in). He preferred to employ Polish and Hungarian English graduates as their written English was better than any of British English graduates he'd employed.
 
@paulrbarnard as a fellow dyslexic I find it quite fascinating to spell.

I have also found trying to learn a different language that it's ex English teachers that are pedantic to the extreme about conjugating verbs, most people just want to communicate effectively in other languages, the native speakers don't seem to mind if you split an infinitive or refer to an object as male or female, I suppose now days you can use the excuse that the object now identifies differently from its perceived original gender. 😱
 
It's an interesting topic and a paradise for pedants, but beyond the bounds of this forum' here are some statistics on levels of adult literacy and numeracy, (or rather illiteracy and innumeracy), in the UK. According to the OECD, England is the only developed country where adults aged 55-65 perform better in literacy and numeracy than those aged 16-24.
  • Literacy
    16.4% of adults in England have very poor literacy skills, which means they can understand short, straightforward texts on familiar topics. In Scotland, 26.7% of adults have challenges with literacy, and in Wales, 12% lack basic literacy skills.

  • Numeracy
    57.4% of English adults have numeracy skills equivalent to or lower than Level 2, which is the UK Entry Level 3. This level is expected of children aged 9–11.

  • Disparities
    There are disparities in essential skills levels across England, with some areas having higher needs than others. For example, 15% of adults in Didsbury West, Manchester lack functional literacy or numeracy, compared to 39% in Heslington, York.

    They walk among us.
 
I invigilated GCSEs, A levels and professional exams for a few years. Here are a few questions .......... I kid you not ............ from an foundation level GCSE maths paper.

How many 50 pences are there in £200?
What is 17 + 14?
Write 6008 in words.
28 x 4?

I wrote down ten questions and showed them to ten people connected in one way or another with the education system - T.A.s, retired teachers and heads, a couple of university lecturers - and asked them how old a child they thought the questions were set for. Their answers? One eight, one ten and eight nines. I had harder questions in the common entrance exam and eleven plus.
It was possible to get a "C" from the paper these were on (it's changed to a numeric system now), which counts as a full GCSE, and people would presume a maths GCSE would guarantee numeracy.
 
I invigilated GCSEs, A levels and professional exams for a few years. Here are a few questions .......... I kid you not ............ from an foundation level GCSE maths paper.

How many 50 pences are there in £200?
What is 17 + 14?
Write 6008 in words.
28 x 4?

I wrote down ten questions and showed them to ten people connected in one way or another with the education system - T.A.s, retired teachers and heads, a couple of university lecturers - and asked them how old a child they thought the questions were set for. Their answers? One eight, one ten and eight nines. I had harder questions in the common entrance exam and eleven plus.
It was possible to get a "C" from the paper these were on (it's changed to a numeric system now), which counts as a full GCSE, and people would presume a maths GCSE would guarantee numeracy.
On the other side of the coin, I recently looked at my 10 year old granddaughter's 11+ practice books, and although I could do the maths(arithmetic really) questions, I sincerely believe that they were way harder than the sort of stuff in the 1963 11+ test that I sat.
 
I invigilated GCSEs, A levels and professional exams for a few years. Here are a few questions .......... I kid you not ............ from an foundation level GCSE maths paper.

How many 50 pences are there in £200?
What is 17 + 14?
Write 6008 in words.
28 x 4?

I wrote down ten questions and showed them to ten people connected in one way or another with the education system - T.A.s, retired teachers and heads, a couple of university lecturers - and asked them how old a child they thought the questions were set for. Their answers? One eight, one ten and eight nines. I had harder questions in the common entrance exam and eleven plus.
It was possible to get a "C" from the paper these were on (it's changed to a numeric system now), which counts as a full GCSE, and people would presume a maths GCSE would guarantee numeracy.
The papers have a wide range of difficulty. Focusing on the easiest questions does not indicate how difficult it would be to achieve a higher grade.
 

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