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From: Antonio Marques <no_email@invalid.invalid>
Newsgroups: sci.lang,alt.usage.english
Subject: =?UTF-8?Q?Re:=20To=20waffle,=20=E2=80=98to=20waver,?=
 =?UTF-8?Q?=20to=20vacillate,=20to=20equivocate,=20to=20dither=E2=80=99?=
Date: Wed, 1 May 2024 18:51:46 -0000 (UTC)
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jerryfriedman <jerry.friedman99@gmail.com> wrote:
> Antonio Marques wrote:
> 
>> jerryfriedman <jerry.friedman99@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Antonio Marques wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Bertel Lund Hansen <gadekryds@lundhansen.dk> wrote:
>>>>> jerryfriedman wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> By the way, Steve isn't the only participant in a.u.e. who doesn't
>>>>>> notice Subject lines.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Certainly not.
>>>>> 
>>>>>> I don't know how that happens,
>>>>> 
>>>>> Automatically. And I hate it if I am 'forced' to quote something that
>>>>> appears only in the subject line.
>>>>> 
>>> 
>>>> Never mind that in the bit that Steve quoted to flippantly inquire on what
>>>> 'that' meant, it was quite explicitly said 'dither'.
>>> 
>>> The "it" there isn't idiomatic 
> 
>> The sentence sounded wrong to me, but even now I'm not sure why.
>> As to 'it', maybe it's not idiomatic, but is it ungrammatical? I don't
>> quite see it.
> 
> "It" refers to "dither",

No, it's an impersonal passive, and I've just found out that for the last
30/40 years I may have been using a construct that english doesn't have.

It's probably late to erase it from my grammar, never mind that I like it.
Oh, well.


> so they're competing to be the subject of the
> clause.  If the sentence is an example of what I believe you linguists

(That's not me.)


> call "right dislocation", you'd want a comma before "dither", and this
> would be a very strange spot for the construction, for reasons I can't
> define except that it's typically colloquial.

I won't say I've never used that one, but I agree it's much too marked.


> Otherwise, we've got "pseudocleft sentences" such as "It doesn't matter
> where it happened" (compare "Where it happened doesn't matter"), but
> the noun phrase corresponding to the initial "It" has to be a clause
> or a to+infinite phrase/clause.
> 
> (All subject to correction, notably of terminology.)
> 
>>> (though English has similar constructions that
>>> do have an "it").  You could write "'dither' was quite explicitly said."
>>> I might write something like "the meaning was explicitly 'dither'."
> 
>> I could, but that would move the topic from the intended position. I can't
>> think of a suitable alternative.
> 
> There's "In the bit that Steve quoted to flippantly inquire what 'that'
> meant, it quite explicitly said 'dither'."  That's somewhat informal, I'd
> say. 

It wouldn't be the first time I've seen that construction where I expected
'mine'.


> What's the antecedent of "it"?  More formally, you could write
> "the text said" or "Aidan said".
> 
> If the subject were shorter, you could write "The bit that Steve quoted
> explicitly said 'dither'."  Or maybe you'd want something instead of
> "said", such as "included the word".  But what you actually wrote was
> too long for that to be comfortable.

Which brings us to there being no proper alternative, which is odd but
doesn't look likely to interfere with my sleep.


>>> Also, "on" would be better as "about", or better still deleted, in my
>>> opinion.
> 
>> That's another interesting thing. You're right that it sounds better
>> without a preposition. But... where did I acquire inquire on from?
>> The best I could come up with in a lazy search was that it exists but
>> doesn't seem appear in reputable sources. One page suggests inquire should
>> take the same or no prepositions as ask, which sounds neat but may be
>> wrong. Ask on doesn't certainly seem possible, unless in the unrelated keep
>> asking meaning.
> 
>> This should provide some more material for comment.
> ..
> 
> In a minute of thought, I can't think of a situation where you could
> replace "ask" with "inquire" but would change the preposition.
> 
> (I might have time later to return to the topic of contempt by default.)
>