Language queries

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Matt Morrison
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Language queries

Post by Matt Morrison »

Because it's far more fun to ask you guys than to Google it, here's a thread for queries about your English words, phrases, grammar and that. I'll start.

So if you describe something as having the attributes of masturbation, you would call it masturbatory.
But if you were to describe something as having the attributes of mutual masturbation, would you call it mutual masturbatory or mutually masturbatory, or another option?
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Re: Language queries

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Matt Morrison
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Re: Language queries

Post by Matt Morrison »

Well done, prick.
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Adam Gillard
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Re: Language queries

Post by Adam Gillard »

I'll lend you a hand here and plump for 'mutually masturbatory'.
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Re: Language queries

Post by Jon Corby »

Adam Gillard wrote:I'll lend you a hand here and plump for 'mutually masturbatory'.
I lolled :D
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Re: Language queries

Post by Matt Morrison »

BBC claims that "US actor George Clooney has accused the Daily Mail of "irresponsibility" after it claimed his fiancee's mother opposes their marriage on religious grounds."

Is this technically ok? To me "fiancee's mother" refers to a single person, not to both the fiancee AND her mother. So it is saying Clooney is marrying the mother, no?
or is the meaning of the word "fiancee" enough to carry it through because of the link with "marriage" ?
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Re: Language queries

Post by Ian Volante »

Matt Morrison wrote:BBC claims that "US actor George Clooney has accused the Daily Mail of "irresponsibility" after it claimed his fiancee's mother opposes their marriage on religious grounds."

Is this technically ok? To me "fiancee's mother" refers to a single person, not to both the fiancee AND her mother. So it is saying Clooney is marrying the mother, no?
or is the meaning of the word "fiancee" enough to carry it through because of the link with "marriage" ?
It does indeed refer to a single person and looks fine to me. I'm not sure where the confusion is coming in.
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Re: Language queries

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Ian Volante wrote:
Matt Morrison wrote:BBC claims that "US actor George Clooney has accused the Daily Mail of "irresponsibility" after it claimed his fiancee's mother opposes their marriage on religious grounds."

Is this technically ok? To me "fiancee's mother" refers to a single person, not to both the fiancee AND her mother. So it is saying Clooney is marrying the mother, no?
or is the meaning of the word "fiancee" enough to carry it through because of the link with "marriage" ?
It does indeed refer to a single person and looks fine to me. I'm not sure where the confusion is coming in.
It's just that it doesn't explicitly state who is getting married. For example, "Dave's mother told him he was an idiot" - told who he was an idiot? Dave's mother is just a person we've specified. Does it automatically mean that we're also talking about Dave? I don't think it does. Someone might be friends with Dave but then also get to know his mother in her own right but still refer to her as "Dave's mother". So in this case, mentioning Dave's mother clearly wouldn't have to involve Dave.

Also, where did you read this, Matt? It seems that a new headline could be "Some website claims that BBC claims that..." and so on.
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Re: Language queries

Post by Matt Morrison »

Yeah from BBC website: http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-28225467

You see with your example Gevin I guess you're right it's the same thing but it's easy to infer that the "him" has to be Dave.
With the Clooney excerpt only two people have been mentioned so it is automatically inferred that "their marriage" must refer to Clooney and his fiancee's mother.

I'm struggling a bit now as yeah I agree they are kind of the same thing but to me yours reads fine but the Clooney one reads awkwardly.

With yours we have no information on any "him" other than Dave. With Clooney we could have two options for "their", as referring to either "Clooney and his fiancee" or "Clooney and his fiancee's mother", so we have to choose.
Clearly I'm being facetious here and any HUMAN knows they mean "Clooney and his fiancee" but from a language point of view I feel like this definitely computes as "Clooney and his fiancee's mother" getting married.
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Re: Language queries

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Where do the BBC and Daily Mail fit into this marriage?
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Re: Language queries

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Something that's often confused me is hyphen usage. I was looking into this and if you have a "compound adjective" before a noun you connect all the bits with hyphens except adverbs that end in -ly and the word "very". So you'd have a "piss-poor car", or a "very poor car" or a "fairly poor car". "Well" takes a hyphen, as in "well-connected person". But if they come after the noun you don't hyphenate - "the car was piss poor". But what if there are several words in the compound? If someone wants to buy a rubbish car, is he the "wanting-to-buy-a-fairly-poor-car man", even with the word "fairly" in there?

Here's one of the sources I found in my investigations.
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Re: Language queries

Post by Heather Styles »

I say yes, he would be "the wanting-to-buy-a-fairly-poor-car man". I don't know why I think this, other than "the wanting-to-buy-a-fairly poor-car man" just kind of looks wrong. One could always sidestep the issue with "the man wanting to buy a fairly poor car" (or, for headline purposes, "the cheapskate").
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