Snow

Tue Mar 3 20:37:48 UTC 2009

Not so. For a question like this, "linguists" are required only to describe
as accurately as possible how the language is being used.

There's no disagreement at all that sentences exhibiting syntax like the one
you submitted are common and perfectly understandable, or that actual
opinions about the advisability of using such syntax are divided.

There is some disagreement on a secondary question: how to account for the
syntax, which may or may not be inconsistent with traditional usage. This
question is a theoretical one, though the answer, if discoverable, could
have implications for one's opinion of the syntactical structure itself.

The question of whether one should use or avoid this structure, which was
IIRC, the original question, requires a prescriptive rather than a merely
descriptive answer, and linguists don't like to prescribe usage.  First of
all, we want to avoid the perception that we are self-appointed language
"experts" (they seem to be everywhere) who pontificate on usage based on
little or nothing beyond their own personal prejudices. Second, experience
shows that usages live or die (especially in speech) despite what any
"experts" may think about them. And third, we don't want to encourage the
popular idea that because an otherwise normal person says "irregardless" or
occasionally uses a plural subject with a singular verb, that person is by
definition a lunkhead.  A lunkhead they [sic] may be, but you can't
determine it from an isolated linguistic form.

As an academic, I wear many hats: my linguist hat, my lexicographer hat,
my winged Viking helmet, my propeller beany.  I also have an
"instructor-of-English- composition" hat, which I just put on.  I used to be
paid genuine coin of the realm to teach university students how to write
"effectively," and to do so in the rather impersonal manner usually demanded
requires observance of certain standards of usage that may or may not be
entirely logical, and which, over the decades, inevitably become
increasingly liberal as the language mutates. (Who today follows the
nineteenth-century dictum to "avoid the false possessive"?)  They are
"standards" simply by virtue of being characteristic of the most lucid and
respected writers. In other words, you meet these standards or you may at
some crucial moment be considered a lunkhead.

Because language is psychological rather than purely logical, the standards
sometimes fluctuate and not every guide to usage will agree on every last
detail. My impression is that there is some disagreement among us as to
how odd, annoying, or otherwise obnoxious the syntax of the "snow" sentence
really is.  That's a judgment call, and, interestingly enough, exactly the
call we've been asked to make.

But making that call isn't a job for "linguists"; it's a job for instructors
or perhaps editors.

All I can do as an English instructor is to reiterate my own belief - based
both on what I was taught in a previous century and on my own absorption of
what I read and hear - that "inches" is the subject of the sentence and
requires a plural verb.  However, I would not get exercised about this
particular sentence as a threat to English or anything else.

But I'd still mark it "wrong" on a freshman paper.

JL

On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 2:48 PM, Bill Palmer <w_a_palmer at bellsouth.net>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Bill Palmer <w_a_palmer at BELLSOUTH.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Snow
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I'm thinking that linguists are like economists, who, in the well known
> phrase, could be laid end to end and never reach a conclucion.
>
> Bill
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Baker, John" <JMB at STRADLEY.COM>
> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Sent: Tuesday, March 03, 2009 2:24 PM
> Subject: Re: Snow
>
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail
> > header -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Baker, John" <JMB at STRADLEY.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: Snow
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >        MWDEU's examples are "Ten dollars is all I have left," "Two
> > miles is as far as they can walk," and "Two thirds of the area is under
> > water."  In such cases, a singular verb seems far preferable, although
> > you can contrive examples such as "I came to town with forty silver
> > dollars, and now ten dollars are all I have left."
> >
> >        On reflection, I believe that the analysis given by Arnold
> > Zwicky (and, posting earlier, Larry Horn) is superior to the one I had
>  > given (not that that should be surprising).  I had suggested that a
> > singular verb could be used if the subject were considered to be a
> > single expectation.  That doesn't hold up very well with sentences such
> > as *"Thirteen crates of oranges is expected," although it again is
> > probably possible to contrive an example allowing a singular verb.
> >
> >
> > John Baker
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
> > Of Arnold Zwicky
> > Sent: Tuesday, March 03, 2009 11:04 AM
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > Subject: Re: Snow
> >
> > (i've reorganized the postings in this thread to put them into temporal
> > sequence.)
> >
> >> On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 7:51 PM, Bill Palmer
> >> <w_a_palmer at bellsouth.net>wrote:
> >>
> >>> Bianca Solorzano of CBS News reported this evening that "13 inches of
> >
> >>> snow are expected in New York."
> >>>
> >>> The expectations are for what: inches or snow?
> >>>
> >>> "Is" or "are"?
> >
> >
> >> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
> >> Behalf Of Jonathan Lighter
> >> Sent: Sunday, March 01, 2009 10:26 PM
> >> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> >> Subject: Re: Snow
> >>
> >> The object of a preposition cannot be the subject of a sentence. So
> >> "inches," not "snow," is (not "are") the subject, and "are" (not "is")
> >
> >> is correct.
> >>
> >
> >
> > On Mar 1, 2009, at 8:06 PM, John Baker wrote:
> >
> >>        I would think that the subject could be either "inches" (in
> >> which case "are" would be correct) or "13 inches of snow,"
> >> considered as
> >> a single expectation (in which case "is" would be correct).  MWDEU, at
> >
> >> 56, seems to prefer the singular verb, though I am comfortable with
> >> either.
> >
> > MWDEU's examples are not as complex as "13 inches of snow".  what makes
> > this NP complex is that there are two possible analyses for it
> > (corresponding to the two interpretations John Baker sees): one in which
> > "13 inches" is the head and "of snow" is a complement to it, and one in
> > which "snow" is the head and "13 inches" is a quantity determiner
> > (requiring that the head be marked by the preposition "of").  in the
> > first, the NP is plural, because its head is plural; in the second, the
> > NP is singular, because its head (the mass noun
> > "snow") is singular.
> >
> > like John Baker, i'm comfortable with either, though some circumstances
> > would favor one over the other.
> >
>  > arnold
> >
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