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mjed9
Joined: 25 Oct 2003
Posts: 242
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 Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 4:21 pm Post subject: Re: odd sentence |
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| basiltherat wrote: |
I found the following in a text book. It seems to me that "to be" is unnecessary ie redundant.
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Then again we could argue that a lot of English grammar is redundant.
For example
3rd person 's'
plural 's'
any tense
the / a
he / she
most prepositions
I think it is important to realise that most of our language is unnecessary and that most words act as "fillers"
"think important know most language unnecesary. most word fillers."
Another example:
He likes to go shopping on Sundays with his parents and then afterwards he likes to be left alone to contemplate the meaning of life
"he like shop Sunday with parent then like alone think life meaning"
Is it still understandable? If so then all the other words are redundant. |
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Stephen Jones
Joined: 21 Feb 2003
Posts: 4124
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 5:14 pm Post subject: |
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Yes, it's redundant. That is to say you could get rid of it and the meaning would be the same.
However, in languages redundancy is normally a very good thing. It means that you can miss out some part of the message (possibly because of background noise or inattention) and the rest of the message gets through with the meaining unchanged. |
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Stephen Jones
Joined: 21 Feb 2003
Posts: 4124
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| Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 5:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Yep, mjed9, great minds not only think alike, they seem to do so at the same time :) |
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stillnosheep
Joined: 01 Mar 2004
Posts: 2068
Location: eslcafe
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| Posted: Sun May 23, 2004 12:33 am Post subject: |
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Stephen Jones and mjed9: Please go back and reread anthyp's post. How can the longer formulation be redundant if the two sentences mean two completely different things.
"I found the Dog dead" = The dog was dead when I discovered it.
"I found the Dog to be dead" = Upon investigation the dog was dead.
"Found to be" does not mean the same as "found". Full stop. They are not equivalents but two different, though entymologically connected, verbs, both of which contain the word 'found' which maybe is what is causing the confusion here.
| anthyp wrote: |
| Regarding the OP, I agree with those who feel that the "to be" is not necessarily redundant: Is the condition of the console found to be below required standards (as in the condition is not acceptable), or is condition of the console found below required standards (as terms in an index)? Picky, I know, but so it goes with these sorts of things. |
The fact that in many situations we could substitute the shorter sentence and the context would supply us with enough clues to be able to understand the sentence anyway is irrelevant.
Neitheris it true that
| Quote: |
| in languages redundancy is normally a very good thing. It means that you can miss out some part of the message (possibly because of background noise or inattention) and the rest of the message gets through with the meaining unchanged. |
What if the wrong part (the condition/unsatisfactory) is misheard rather than the fillers/redundancies? Redundancies and uneccessary fillers make misunderstanding far more, not less, likely by over complicating sentences and making them longer. So the listener/reader is more likely to become confused as well as having to concentrate for a longer period, which is tiring.
| mjed9 wrote: |
Then again we could argue that a lot of English grammar is redundant.
For example
3rd person 's'
plural 's'
any tense
the / a
he / she
most prepositions
I think it is important to realise that most of our language is unnecessary and that most words act as "fillers"
"think important know most language unnecesary. most word fillers."
Another example:
He likes to go shopping on Sundays with his parents and then afterwards he likes to be left alone to contemplate the meaning of life
"he like shop Sunday with parent then like alone think life meaning"
Is it still understandable? If so then all the other words are redundant. |
Really?????
If I hadn't just read the full sentence and so been able to fill in the missing words it could have meant almost anything.
How about:
"She was like a shop on a Sunday; with your parents back then, she was, like, alone in thinking her life had a meaning,"
Ie
"During her recent psychotic illness only she and your parents maintained their belief in her ability to reconstruct a useful and meaningful narrative from the seemingly disparate elerments of her life."
And please don't ask me to reconstruct what you may have meant by
| Quote: |
| think important know most language unnecesary. most word fillers. |
!!!!!!!!!! |
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anthyp
Joined: 16 Apr 2004
Posts: 1320
Location: Chicago, IL USA
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| Posted: Sun May 23, 2004 2:01 am Post subject: Re: odd sentence |
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Although stillnosleep has essentially argued the point I am about to make, I think it bears repeating in a simpler fashion. In case you've forgotten it, the OP reads as follows:
| basiltherat wrote: |
I found the following in a text book. It seems to me that "to be" is unnecessary ie redundant.
I found the condition of the consoles to be below required standards |
If the "to be" is redundant, we agree that it can be removed and the resulting sentences will read exactly the same way. So let's look at the resulting sentences.
(1) I found the condition of the consoles to be below required standards.
There is only one possible way of reading this sentence. The condition of the consoles is found to be unacceptable according to the required standards. Now let's look at sentence 2:
(2) I found the condition of the consoles below required standards.
Suppose you are reading the index to a technical journal and come across two entries, "the condition of the consoles," and "required standards." You could use sentence 2 to express the way these entries are arranged. Or, again, you could be saying that the condition of the consoles is found to be unacceptable according to the regulations.
Given that there are at least two possible ways of reading sentence 2, and that sentence 2 is thus at least slightly different from sentence 1, I don't see how you can seriously make the case that the "to be" in the OP is redundant. You say that you can "get rid of it, and the meaning will be the same," but that's clearly not the case if you can read the sentences differently. So please either tell me how I am wrong in my understanding of "redundant" or how it's impossible to read sentence 2 in more than one way. Whether a lot of the English language is redundant is irrelevant, since we were asked to consider this one example. |
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johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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| Posted: Sun May 23, 2004 2:51 am Post subject: Context |
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Dear anthyp,
It seems to me that context is being forgotten here. In "real life", the sentence is hardly likely to appear in isolation. So, for all "practical purposes", I'd say that in an actual contextual situation, the "to be" would be redundant almost all, if not all, the time.
I mean, you do have to "stretch a ways" to come up with a context in which a misinterpretation would be likely to occur.
Regards,
John |
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anthyp
Joined: 16 Apr 2004
Posts: 1320
Location: Chicago, IL USA
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| Posted: Sun May 23, 2004 3:00 am Post subject: |
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| I agree, John - it is a bit of a stretch. If you go back to my first post, in fact, I admitted to being picky. But take a look at the OP once again - the sentence appears in isolation, doesn't it? There is no context given. The relevancy of "to be" is to be considered as that sentence appears, in isolation, however impractical that might be. And, as you agree, in isolation, as the sentence appears, it is not redundant. |
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mjed9
Joined: 25 Oct 2003
Posts: 242
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| Posted: Sun May 23, 2004 3:01 am Post subject: |
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A little combative for a Sunday but
| stillnosheep wrote: |
The fact that in many situations we could substitute the shorter sentence and the context would supply us with enough clues to be able to understand the sentence anyway is irrelevant.
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How can that be irrelevant ... surely this is what we are talking about!
| stillnosheep wrote: |
| So the listener/reader is more likely to become confused as well as having to concentrate for a longer period, which is tiring. |
aaaah ... diddums
| stillnosheep wrote: |
If I hadn't just read the full sentence and so been able to fill in the missing words it could have meant almost anything.
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I will let you have that one but I will still argue about the irrelevancy of most of our grammar
| stillnosheep wrote: |
And please don't ask me to reconstruct what you may have meant by
| Quote: |
| think important know most language unnecesary. most word fillers. |
!!!!!!!!!! |
Call yourself an English teacher? Actually maybe you don't, are you a teacher?  Off the point somewhat but I have had to decipher far worse than this from some of my students
Finally,
| stillnosheep wrote: |
Stephen Jones and mjed9: Please go back and reread anthyp's post. How can the longer formulation be redundant if the two sentences mean two completely different things.
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Completely different?
I found the dog dead vs. I found the dog to be dead
Yes maybe but surely I am not comparing these two sentences as the problem lies in the word "found" which can mean either by happenstance to stumble across something or upon completed investigation to discover something
How about "I found the dog was dead" vs "I found the dog to be dead". My argument is that the subjunctive is just adding extra words. But in truth the three sentences all share a common meaning i.e. the dog is no longer alive. Boohoo! I'm sure little Timmy (whose dog it was), doesn't give a flying f%ck if you use the subjunctive or not!
Having learnt a little Chinese, which is a very economical language maybe I am becoming misguided as to my own language ... apologies  |
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johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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| Posted: Sun May 23, 2004 3:09 am Post subject: |
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Dear anthyp,
Yup, I agree. But I think there can be a danger to us, as teachers, in that we can sometimes lose sight of the fact that English sentences, in isolation, in textbooks are not really what our students need to be taught. Hey, as long as we're arguing the finer points among ourselves here, that's great. But I think it'd be a mistake to bring this type of "analysis" into most classrooms.
Regards,
John |
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stillnosheep
Joined: 01 Mar 2004
Posts: 2068
Location: eslcafe
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| Posted: Sun May 23, 2004 3:57 am Post subject: |
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| mjed9 wrote: |
| stillnosheep wrote: |
| So the listener/reader is more likely to become confused as well as having to concentrate for a longer period, which is tiring. |
aaaah ... diddums |
personally I try to express myself in a manner less likely to confuse my students and if i do confuse them I see the error as mine, rather than scorn them for their confusion, but hey, that's just me ...
| mjed9 wrote: |
| stillnosheep wrote: |
And please don't ask me to reconstruct what you may have meant by
| Quote: |
| think important know most language unnecesary. most word fillers. |
!!!!!!!!!! |
Call yourself an English teacher? Actually maybe you don't, are you a teacher? Off the point somewhat but I have had to decipher far worse than this from some of my students |
Dear oh dear mjed9, I decided against the reconstruction to spare your blushes. But if you insist will
| Quote: |
| I think it important that you come to know most of your language is unnecesary; most of your words are just fillers. |
do? |
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stillnosheep
Joined: 01 Mar 2004
Posts: 2068
Location: eslcafe
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| Posted: Sun May 23, 2004 4:38 am Post subject: |
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| mjed9 wrote: |
Finally,
| stillnosheep wrote: |
Stephen Jones and mjed9: Please go back and reread anthyp's post. How can the longer formulation be redundant if the two sentences mean two completely different things.
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Completely different?
I found the dog dead vs. I found the dog to be dead
Yes maybe but surely I am not comparing these two sentences as the problem lies in the word "found" which can mean either by happenstance to stumble across something or upon completed investigation to discover something |
No the problem lies in being unable to see that these two concepts are expressed in English using different verbs; the verb to find and the verb to find to be, as I tried to make clear earlier in the thread when I introduced the example that you have just misunderstood.
"I found the Dog dead" = The dog was dead when I discovered it.
"I found the Dog to be dead" = Upon investigation the dog was dead.
I believe that you are genuinly unable to see the difference. I do not criticise you for that. Only for asserting that your misunderstanding is "correct" on a teacher's bulletin board. I'm not sure where you are located Mjed9 but if is somewhere without easy access to a language bookshop then I'm sure that there are any number of books on grammar I could ship out to you (at cost plus p&p) that explain the difference far more clearly and succintly than I can.
| mjed9 wrote: |
How about "I found the dog was dead" vs "I found the dog to be dead". My argument is that the subjunctive is just adding extra words. But in truth the three sentences all share a common meaning i.e. the dog is no longer alive. Boohoo! I'm sure little Timmy (whose dog it was), doesn't give a flying f%ck if you use the subjunctive or not! |
No. They DO NOT share a common meaning. They mean two different things although both refer to the same dead dog. You might as well argue that "You are dead in the water" and "Your argument is dead wrong" share a common meaning because both use of the metaphor of death whilst referring to the same grammatical misapprehension.
If asked by a students why the teacher of inaccurate language is to be found lying dead at my feet I could answer
"Because I found him, stupid"
or I could answer
"Because I found him to be stupid'
and, as I'm sure that you will agree, these two sentences mean very different things, but in both of them you are dead and at my feet having found the use of the subjunctive (to be) perplexing.
Although of course in most instances "Because I found him stupid" will be enough to make clear to my student that it is the dead teacher and not my enquiring student to whom I refer. And this is the form that I would teach.
(and please don't get me going on your understanding of chinese ...  ) |
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basiltherat
Joined: 04 Oct 2003
Posts: 952
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| Posted: Sun May 23, 2004 6:26 am Post subject: |
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thanks everybody. things becoming a lot clearer now.
rgrds
basil |
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mjed9
Joined: 25 Oct 2003
Posts: 242
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| Posted: Sun May 23, 2004 10:15 am Post subject: |
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I find you to be most belittling.
I'd rather be ignorant than arrogant.
Ta ta |
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anthyp
Joined: 16 Apr 2004
Posts: 1320
Location: Chicago, IL USA
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| Posted: Sun May 23, 2004 1:02 pm Post subject: |
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| basiltherat wrote: |
| thanks everybody. things becoming a lot clearer now. |
Are they? I thought we were mucking it up even further with all our bickering. I agree with John that this is only a matter for truly bored EFL teachers, and not their students. But this is a forum for the former, and not the latter, after all. |
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johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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| Posted: Sun May 23, 2004 1:25 pm Post subject: |
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Dear anthyp,
Hmm, I suspect basiltherat might have been being ironic in that last posting.
And, for those who post put-downs of other posters, this quote from Henry James:
"Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind."
From what I've read on these forums, the most knowledgeable poster here on matters on English grammar is likely Stephen Jones. And yet I'll bet even he'd agree that what he knows is but a small fraction of what there is to know.
Humility, in such circumstances, does not mean thinking less of yourself; it means thinking of yourself less.
OK, the Sunday sermon's over.
Regards,
John |
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