Job Discussion Forums

[khmerhit]

The following is a quotation from a professor at Harvard University and a former high-ranking official (as they say in Cambodia):

[younggeorge]

Are you referring to the "If he would .... he would" conditional or the politics?

The Americans have screwed up our vocabulary, why shouldn't they do the same with our grammar? I'm afraid that's another lost cause, along with "hopefully" (meaning "I hope") and "ongoing" (meaning ... er, what does it mean, exactly?).

My favourite is what I like to call "dual copulation": "The problem is is that ..."

If you mean the politics, well they've screwed that up as well, haven't they?

(That should get a few replies, if it doesn't get locked first!)

[Jizzo T. Clown]

What it is, is making the language your own.

[Guy Courchesne]

[denise]

[denise]

[Justin Trullinger]

Younggeorge, if you call that "dual copulation," I suspect that somebody needs to explain copulation to you again. In detail.

Copulation aside (I only teach English! Not Biology!) I think you have to accept that a language is a living thing. They change, vary, and evolve. Anyway, conditionals, at the best of times, have never been anything like as rigid as the structures we teach to students.

Hopefully, as your ongoing education continues, you'll develop more tolerance for the richness and diversity of our shared common language.

Whatever is, is. Whatever will be, will be.

Justin

[gaijinalways]

Ditto, language is always evolving. I am surprised when ever I go Stateside and hear expressions that I don't know, and sometimes don't have a clue as to how to interpret. Of course, watching American TV does that to me to.

[merlin]

Time to move on to the next book in the Murphy series, kiddies.

[Chasgul]

Well, I am pleased to see that the previous poster would be interested in such a situation and it would indeed be of interest to others if he would be so kind as to provide his own question with what one would necessarily call a specimen anwer, wouldn't it?

Had he but provided such a specimen, we would all have saved ourselves the time of thinking of our own.

[Stephen Jones]

What generally happens with conditionals is that those untrained in foreign languages start off by knowing nothing about the terminology.

Then some learn the incorrect classification of zero, first, second, and third conditionals, that seems to be all the rage in pedagogical grammars.

Few get to the third stage of realizing that the standard classification is seriously flawed.

[khmerhit]

Ok Dr Jones, I like the first bit but yu lost me somewhere between paras two and three.... what or who is flawed again? All I know is that it hurts my ears to hear highly educated people speak like they are on the jerry Springer show!!!

[Justin Trullinger]

[Stephen Jones]

What is flawed is the suggestion that there are only four types of conditional sentences, and that the use of one tense in one clause precludes certain tenses in the other.

All of these sentences are grammatical; none conform to the zero, first, second, third conditional rules:

If you will keep juggling those hand grenades, you'll do yourself a mischief.
If they left early, they'll be here around two.
If they left early, they would have missed all the traffic.
If he did go out, I didn't see him.
If you would only think about it a little, you will see that the original quote is quite grammatical.
If he had married Mary Lou, he didn't tell me about it.

The 0,1,2,3 'rules' are simply common collocations. There is no 'rule' that says you can't have 'would' in both clauses, for example. Equally the 'rule' that the second conditional is for hypothetical situations is also as false, as the rule that third conditionals are for things that didn't happen.

Take these pairs of examples, all grammatically correct, but with different truth values for the 'if' clause.

If they had left early, they would be here by now.
If they had left early, they would have missed the traffic jam, so we can expect them any minute now.

If he were a millionaire, he didn't let any of it show.
If he were a millionaire, he would retire to Shangri La.

[Chris_Crossley]

Only this week, I gave my students a lecture about using evaluative language in academic research papers, the kind that they will ("would"?) be expected to use when writing their own essays.

When it comes to the formal written language of academic essays, it really does seem that rigidity in some aspects of grammar is expected. Unreal conditionals are supposed to be used (ideally!) when expressing an opinion about something that should have happened but didn't or else did happen but shouldn't have done (there you are, I've just used two modal conditional perfect tenses! )

The students were told that, if they were to discover that an author's arguments and/or evidence was/were flawed, they should not be afraid to say so in their essay: "It would have been better if the author had [...]" or "The author should/ought to have included more data in his table[...]", or some such expressions!

Whether they will actually use those expressions in their future assignments (including their end-of-course dissertations) remains to be seen, but it is a fair bet that they won't be using these conditionals in speech! (I'll be stunned if they do! )

Still, as they say, language does evolve and change (spoken more quickly than written)... and nobody penalizes students when using incorrect grammar or sloppy language (incorrect gender/number or subject/verb agreements, usually!) in their group or individual presentations - just as long as they make their point clearly! On the other hand, there are still the odd few who can barely stand before an audience and speak, and they are the ones who really drive tutors (not to mention other students) to distraction! Aargh!