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What happened to English grammar?

(314 Posts)
Greatnan Tue 06-Aug-13 07:15:56

Headline in The Daily Mail:
The death of the man who sunk the Belgrano: Falklands Navy hero Sir John 'Sandy' Woodward dies aged 81

Gorki Wed 07-Aug-13 08:03:27

Oh that English were so regular !Of course its beauty is that it isn't. So many times when teaching foreign students you have to say there is no rule for this: it's just English usage. grin

Lilygran Wed 07-Aug-13 09:02:45

I find that headline writers seem to feel themselves exempt from normal rules of English usage. And if you add mistakes to an attempt to write a snappy headline it can be incomprehensible or misleading. Some of us are so embedded in a lifetime of correcting students' language that they can't help noticing this kind of thing. And it is so distracting that it can actually prevent you from appreciating the story!

petallus Wed 07-Aug-13 09:04:50

Non sequitur alert:

I don't consider the man who sank the Belgrano to be a hero.

Bags Wed 07-Aug-13 09:07:50

Here's the wooden spoon for you, petallus.

grumppa Wed 07-Aug-13 09:11:22

Just for the record, Fowler 3rd Edition, 1996, ed. Burchfield, notes that the past tense "is now overwhelmingly sank rather than sunk". It is notable in passing that this now aligns the English with the German "sinken, sank, gesunken".

I hope this doesn't lead to the thread morphing into a discussion of the First and Second World Wars, with the General Belgrano being replaced by the Graf Spee.

Ariadne Wed 07-Aug-13 09:17:28

It might. Why not?

Sel Wed 07-Aug-13 09:20:59

Hopefully grumppa you've scuppered the thread - notice nervous avoidance of sank, sunk, sunken, sunked. grin

petallus Wed 07-Aug-13 09:23:06

Thanks Bags smile

It was a point I seriously wanted to make though.

grumppa Wed 07-Aug-13 09:33:06

I was hoping I'd torpedoed the thread, heroically.

j08 Wed 07-Aug-13 09:33:10

I guess troops coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq are regarded as heros simply because people have seen these wars on tv and it is fresh in their memories. Feelings on the wrongness or rightness of these wars, and the methods used in the fighting, doesn't really come into it. The men themselves are rightly honoured.

People have short memories.

j08 Wed 07-Aug-13 09:34:01

You like playing wars do you grumppa? smile (a patronising one)

j08 Wed 07-Aug-13 09:35:54

We have already covered that point petallus.

And we have never been in a situation where we are responsible for the lives of so many British men. I doubt it was an easy order to give.

petallus Wed 07-Aug-13 09:37:02

I feel the same j08 about men fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Not so sure about torpedoing a ship though.

It's just that I remember reading awful accounts of the Belgrano sinking. It may have been necessary from a military point of view but in my view not a cause for 'celebration'.

j08 Wed 07-Aug-13 09:37:23

No personal feelings involved here Greatnan. I was simply "gobsmacked".

Greatnan Wed 07-Aug-13 09:39:21

My OP was about a grammatical error that a journalist should not have made. Nothing else.

Greatnan Wed 07-Aug-13 09:40:31

I was rather amazed myself, jingle, at the ridiculous attack on my sensitivity - not by you.

j08 Wed 07-Aug-13 09:40:45

And my first post on this thread expressed my feelings.

j08 Wed 07-Aug-13 09:42:16

Oh dear. I hope this thread, and my contribution to it, hasn't caused upset between RL friends. To be honest, I was worrying about this in the small hours.

j08 Wed 07-Aug-13 09:43:10

Did anyone celebrate it petallus. God, I hope not.

Greatnan Wed 07-Aug-13 09:48:29

You certainly haven't caused any upset between any of my friends and myself, jingle, but it is nice of you to be concerned. smile

petallus Wed 07-Aug-13 10:00:41

It was calling the 'the man who sunk the Belgrano' a hero!

Ariadne Wed 07-Aug-13 10:31:15

If he was a hero, then his memory deserves that he be reported in the best possible English.

Bags Wed 07-Aug-13 11:07:01

I don't regard him as a hero. He was just doing his job as he thought best. There's no conscription in this country so people choose to enter the armed forces in order, presumably, to do the jobs armed forces require them to do. Some of those jobs may end up being heroic but no more so than, say, a surgeon's job would – especially surgeons who work for an outfit like, for instance, Médecins sans Frontières, and clean up the mess left by, among others, armed forces various.

Bags Wed 07-Aug-13 11:07:37

You can give me the wooden spoon back now, petallus smile

j08 Wed 07-Aug-13 11:18:23

Oh God, were n' t they all heroes, poor sods. I remember going and standing by my one year old son's cot the night it kicked off and praying that he would never have to get involved with anything like that. I hope and pray the same thing about the grandsons now.