| Author |
Message |
Ray
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2005 11:28 pm
Post subject: Where is the subject? |
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Hello,
I saw the following sentence and don't know where the subject is. Could
anyone please help me?
But normal for the scientist feels decidedly less so for the painfully
shy struggling merely to get by.
Thank you very much.
Ray |
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the Omrud
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2005 11:40 pm
Post subject: Re: Where is the subject? |
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Ray <raymondaliasapollyon@yahoo.com.tw> spake thusly:
| Quote: | Hello,
I saw the following sentence and don't know where the subject is. Could
anyone please help me?
But normal for the scientist feels decidedly less so for the painfully
shy struggling merely to get by.
|
It is an ugly sentence and I had to read it four times. The subject
is "normal", meaning "things which are normal" or "normal
events/experiences". The phrase "feels ... less so" is not helpful.
But "normal" [for the scientist] feels decidedly less so [for the
painfully shy struggling merely to get by].
--
David
=====
replace usenet with the |
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Josh Norther
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2005 11:48 pm
Post subject: Re: Where is the subject? |
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Ray wrote:
| Quote: | Hello,
I saw the following sentence and don't know where the subject is. Could
anyone please help me?
But normal for the scientist feels decidedly less so for the painfully
shy struggling merely to get by.
Thank you very much.
Ray
|
If one were to put normal in quotes (ie: "normal"), one could
probably consider "normal" the subject of what is a somewhat
awkward sentence.
--
Josh Norther
For e-mail, insert 2357 after phonics. |
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designquest10
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 12:00 am
Post subject: Re: Where is the subject? |
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....
"If one were to put normal in quotes (ie: "normal"), one could
probably consider "normal" the subject of what is a somewhat
awkward sentence."
--> I would take this assessment a step further and say that
the original sentence is definitley an awkward one:
"But normal for the scientist feels decidedly less so
for the painfully shy struggling merely to get by."
It needs fixing (even though I wish I knew to what
normal actually refers):
But, what consitutes 'normal' for the scientist can
feel decidedly less so for the painfully shy -- who
often struggle merely to get by. |
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Don Phillipson
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 12:00 am
Post subject: Re: Where is the subject? |
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"Ray" <raymondaliasapollyon@yahoo.com.tw> wrote in message
news:1131380886.576755.242410@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
| Quote: | I saw the following sentence and don't know where the subject is. Could
anyone please help me?
But normal for the scientist feels decidedly less so for the painfully
shy struggling merely to get by.
|
1. Parsing helps: the only possible subject (that makes
sense) is "normal."
2. This in turn helps us to identify the fatal semantic flaw.
Subject "normal" must be a noun; the same word "normal"
may also an adjective, and this adjectival sense is invoked
by "less so" (= less normal.) This breaks a basic rules
of composition (that homonyms or words spelled the same,
(e.g. noun house and verb house) should not be used together,
except deliberately for some special effect.
No such special effect is imaginable here. It is simply a
badly written sentence.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada) |
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Lars Eighner
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 12:11 am
Post subject: Re: Where is the subject? |
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In our last episode,
<1131380886.576755.242410@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
the lovely and talented Ray
broadcast on alt.usage.english:
| Quote: | Hello,
I saw the following sentence and don't know where the subject is. Could
anyone please help me?
But normal for the scientist feels decidedly less so for the painfully
shy struggling merely to get by.
|
"Normal."
--
Lars Eighner usenet@larseighner.com http://www.larseighner.com/
What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
--Samuel Johnson |
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Martin Ambuhl
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 1:32 am
Post subject: Re: Where is the subject? |
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Ray wrote:
| Quote: | Hello,
I saw the following sentence and don't know where the subject is. Could
anyone please help me?
But normal for the scientist feels decidedly less so for the painfully
shy struggling merely to get by.
|
The sentence standing alone will look like jibberish to many. However,
it seems clear that there was an earlier sentence like
"Measuring carefully and subjecting choices to painstaking analysis
is normal."
The sentence you have given could be a subsequent sentence, but needs a
slight change:
But 'normal' for the scientist feels decidedly less so for the painfully
shy struggling merely to get by.
It it the term 'normal' that is the subject. |
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jerry_friedman@yahoo.com
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 3:40 am
Post subject: Re: Where is the subject? |
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Ray wrote:
| Quote: | Hello,
I saw the following sentence and don't know where the subject is. Could
anyone please help me?
But normal for the scientist feels decidedly less so for the painfully
shy struggling merely to get by.
Thank you very much.
|
This reminds me of something I heard from a friend of mine, a math
teacher:
How can you tell whether a mathematician is an extravert?
He looks at *your* shoes when he talks to you.
Shalam ching!
--
Jerry Friedman teaches math and physics. |
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Mark Brader
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 6:50 am
Post subject: Re: Where is the subject? |
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"Ray" asks about:
| Quote: | But normal for the scientist feels decidedly less so for the painfully
shy struggling merely to get by.
|
Don Phillipson:
| Quote: | This in turn helps us to identify the fatal semantic flaw.
Subject "normal" must be a noun; the same word "normal"
may also an adjective, and this adjectival sense is invoked
by "less so" (= less normal.)
|
True.
| Quote: | This breaks a basic rules
of composition (that homonyms or words spelled the same,
(e.g. noun house and verb house) should not be used together,
except deliberately for some special effect.
|
"Normal" as an adjective isn't being used, just alluded to.
| Quote: | It is simply a badly written sentence.
|
Not, it is simply an example of how flexible English parts of speech are.
--
Mark Brader | "Warning! Drinking beer, wine or spirits during
Toronto | pregnancy can harm your baby." (City of Toronto
msb@vex.net | notice in restaurant washrooms--men's and women's) |
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John Lawler
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 7:20 am
Post subject: Re: Where is the subject? |
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Ray <raymondaliasapollyon@yahoo.com.tw> writes:
| Quote: | I saw the following sentence and don't know where the subject is. Could
anyone please help me?
But normal for the scientist feels decidedly less so
for the painfully shy struggling merely to get by.
|
The author wasn't very clear about how to pronounce their sentence, so
it produces some garden path phenomena. If the author had left in the
marks of the pseudo-cleft it came from:
But [what is] normal for the scientist feels decidedly less so
for the painfully shy struggling merely to get by.
and maybe had left in a few other traffic signs, thrown overboard in the
wild rush to produce a sentence:
But what is ["]normal["] for the scientist feels decidedly less [than
normal] for the painfully shy [people,] struggling merely to get by.
the sentence would have perhaps been easier for the reader to "hear".
As for your question,
'[what is "]normal["] for the scientist'
is the subject of
'feels'.
Not that that makes much difference is half the markers are deleted.
General Rule: If perplexed by an English sentence,
try to figure out which words are missing.
-John Lawler * Linguistics @ umich.edu & wwu.edu
-----------------------------------------------
"Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment
of our intelligence by means of language."
-- Ludwig Wittgenstein |
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