Interesting (and strange sounding) sentence.

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fluffyhamster
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Post by fluffyhamster » Mon Dec 29, 2008 1:27 am

LarryLatham wrote:"It was not a decision he had expected Massingham to welcome, and nor had he."

Had I supplied more context, you would have easily known that the first "he" was Dalgliesh, and the second "he" refers to Massingham, for those of you who are familiar with the characters in P. D. James' novels. I apologize for not realizing that the meaning might not be clear. It was clear to me because I knew the context.

If you're not familiar with her novels, you're really missing something wonderful. James is a terrific writer, and I believe her use of the language is exemplary. For those who are wondering about the characters, Adam Dalgliesh is a Detective Commander at Scotland Yard, in charge of an elite new (in this novel) detective unit assigned to handle particularly sensitive major cases. (In this novel, a member of the British Parliment is found dead in the vestry of a church, with his throat cut.) Massingham is a Detective Chief Inspector who works for Dalgliesh, and the decision he might not welcome is that he was left behind to supervise the forensic team at the church, while Dalgliesh took Detective Inspector Kate Miskin with him to interview members of the victim's family.

I am tuned, as most of you likely are too, to notice unusual instances of English usage. I often come into focus while reading or listening to English when something "out of the box", so to speak, occurs. But being an amateur linguist as well as an ex-teacher, I am not so quick to pronounce judgment upon uncommon examples of English. My view is that while it is all well and good to have "standards" in your mind about how you, yourself, wish to use the language, finding fault with users who depart from your particular standards is another matter entirely. For openers, let's not forget that there are many "Englishes," and that there likely are different standards where regional differences are found. For another thing, let's also remember that our language is a living form, morphing over time into what contemporary users find convenient or salient for their needs. Who amongst us would suggest that Middle English is "correct", while modern forms are just "bad writing." What strikes me as interesting, time after time, is that unusual English often contains clues as to real, and sometimes not well understood, features of the language. We musn't kid ourselves into believing that we know all there is to know about English.
Sorry (Larry and others), but I don't see how anyone could have (have had) problems in understanding that there were two characters involved, the first=X (the first 'he'), and the second Massingham (to which the second 'he' "obviously" refers). It may not be great writing, but it seems clear enough (to me, anyway). Am I missing something? :( (Yes! you cry - the joys of crime fiction, not to mention the finer points of AL discussion! :o :lol: :wink: 8) :) ).
JTT before that wrote:I don't really understand your

"It was not a decision he had expected Massingham to welcome, and nor had he expected M to welcome it"
My point was that that (my a) way of construing things) would have been a repetitive thing to think on the basis of what was originally written, the implication being that my b) option should be the preferred choice/way of construing the situation.
JTT in continuation there wrote:and I'm no wiser as to whether the second "he" is the first "he" again or Massingham. Or yet another bloke?

It's just badly written.
I refer you again to my previous post:
I, FH wrote:Complete the sentence with either ellipted (=unnecessary?) fragment:

It was not a decision he had expected Massingham to welcome, and nor had he...

a) expected M to welcome it
b) welcomed it

JuanTwoThree
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Post by JuanTwoThree » Mon Dec 29, 2008 9:04 am

Well, despite some people's lack of difficulty with the said sentence, I'm with lolwhites. It's open to two interpretations. Or more.

It may be like those pictures that turn from old ladies into young girls and you suddenly see what other people saw from the beginning.

"It was not a castle the sheriff had expected Robin to attack, and nor had he"

Is it:

"and Robin hadn't attacked it ( just as the sheriff had expected)"


or:

"and the sheriff hadn't attacked it either"

or even:

"and Robin hadn't expected to attack it either, surprising everybody (even himself) when he did."

And to show just how easy it is to misinterpret what is obvious to one person, Larry thought that Fluffy thought that the sentence was open to interpretation, whereas Fluffy thought he (Fluffy) was making the point that it wasn't.[/b]

fluffyhamster
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Post by fluffyhamster » Mon Dec 29, 2008 11:35 am

I guess I should take a leaf out of lolwhites' book and write that little bit more clearly - then everyone might say 'I'm with fluffy on this one' or 'Isn't that what fluffy said'.

Bah, humbug!

:D

LarryLatham
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Post by LarryLatham » Mon Dec 29, 2008 6:00 pm

JTT's point is valid: a single sentence out of context is frequently, if not always, open to more than one interpretation. I should originally have supplied more context, leading up to that sentence. However, having made that point, his further assertion that it is bad writing then looses steam. Juan, can you claim on the one hand that you are not clear on the meaning of a (single) sentence, and on the other that it is badly written? And particularly when I did say that I took the sentence from a novel, which presumably means either that it was written by a native speaker or by someone who has learned English well enough to write competently in the language? Moreover, it also means that an editor and a publisher as well as a proof-reader have all also passed the sentence.

JuanTwoThree
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Post by JuanTwoThree » Mon Dec 29, 2008 8:17 pm

You're right of course. It would have passed a whole army of proof-readers and editors, not to mention having had a context to make it clear. So my "badly written" is hardly fair. I should have said that it was less than clear, as it stood. After all SJ, lolwhites and I all found it hard to understand, without the benefit of a context. Perhaps we could settle for "extra-contextually infelicitous".

Be all that as it may. I didn't think the "and" was particularly BrE, which is what you were really asking. That is until I found this

http://books.google.es/books?id=TuWRnRJ ... =RA5-PA200

Read from after macaroni-cheese on page 200 onwards*. Very interesting. In fact the whole book looks interesting.

* A sentence which cries out for a context!

LarryLatham
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Post by LarryLatham » Mon Dec 29, 2008 11:39 pm

Yes, the book does look interesting, Juan. And right in the middle of page 200 is the suggestion that "and nor" is rather British. The American analog is reckoned to be, "and neither," which I do find unremarkable to my American ear.

She didn't do her homework, and neither did I.

However, in this particular case, it doesn't seem to work.

"It was not a decision he had expected Massingham to welcome, and neither had he."

...while perhaps slightly less exotic to my ear, nevertheless does not feel like Native American speech. In fact, it seems to change the meaning, as we now know it, because it implies that the final "he" refers to the same person as the first "he."

JuanTwoThree
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Post by JuanTwoThree » Tue Dec 30, 2008 7:46 am

"it implies that the final "he" refers to the same person as the first "he""

Which happily brings us full circle, because that was the problem all along, when the unremarkable (to you) "and neither" was the unremarkable (to me amongst others) "and nor", and it hasn't gone away by putting "neither" instead of "nor": words which are often interchangeable as far as I'm concerned.

fluffyhamster
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Post by fluffyhamster » Tue Dec 30, 2008 1:01 pm

I got Algeo's book in paperback a while back (around the time I mentioned it the "Brian Browser" thread :D ), and agree that it is pretty interesting and potentially very useful. The only problem though is that the citations (as opposed to the CIC frequency stats) are 'heavily in the genre of British mystery novels and other light fiction' (pg 5), being drawn as they are from several hundred books that Algeo digested, and some (of these books/citations) are quite dated and at best a fudgy substitute for actual spoken data.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=TuWR ... #PPA314,M1 ('Bibliography of British book citation sources').

But on the plus side, at least one gets more of P.D. James. :)

EDIT: A good example of how useful the Algeo can be!
http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic ... 928#859928
Last edited by fluffyhamster on Mon Jun 14, 2010 12:35 am, edited 1 time in total.

woodcutter
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Post by woodcutter » Thu Jan 01, 2009 11:38 pm

Seems only one interpretation to me - the first "he" did not expect Massingham to welcome the decision, and it turned out that Massingham did not welcome it. Could someone clearly outline another plausible explanation?

In spoken English we would emphasize "had" and the small cognitive dissonance that this sentence might create would be lessened, because it would indicate no more content was to follow. In a similar way, I think, "and" helps indicate we are dealing with a later result. I think the author is trying to write in a style that copies speech to create familiarity, and it does somehow have a posh but punchy British ring to it.

I would imagine P.D.James is capable of a bad setence or two though.

LarryLatham
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Post by LarryLatham » Fri Jan 02, 2009 12:45 am

woodcutter wrote:I would imagine P.D.James is capable of a bad setence or two though.
Aren't we all! :wink:

JuanTwoThree
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Post by JuanTwoThree » Fri Jan 02, 2009 6:41 am

Woodcutter, try emphasizing the final "he" (rather than the "had") and you may see what others have seen:

"It was not a decision he had expected Massingham to welcome, and neither had hé."

Meaning:

It was not a decision Dalgliesh had expected Massingham to welcome, and Dalgliesh hadn't welcomed it either."

woodcutter
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Post by woodcutter » Fri Jan 02, 2009 7:30 am

Point taken, but it is interesting you switched to "neither" because the example with a final "he" emphasized doesn't seem to work as well with the original "nor" - in that case the interpretation I gave seems much more likely, the other interpretation cries out for a "he himself" or something.

I don't know how many editors/proofreaders such books have, would it really be so many? Anyway, it would take a good army of them to iron out all sloppy writing of that sort, and they might wind the author up to boot.

JuanTwoThree
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Post by JuanTwoThree » Fri Jan 02, 2009 9:01 am

Yes, I hadn't noticed that. "Nor" does seem to get its own stress, but even so you can have

nór hád he

and

nór had (schwa) hé

woodcutter
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Post by woodcutter » Sun Jan 04, 2009 11:40 pm

Actually we were probably both being a little bit context blind really - whether or not the meaning of the pronouns is clear will probably depend on the surrounding sentences.

Maybe our prodigal OP could provide them?

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Post by LarryLatham » Mon Jan 05, 2009 12:52 am

After leaving the church Dalgliesh went briefly back to the Yard to pick up his file on Theresa Nolan and Diana Travers, and it was after midday before he arrived at 62 Campden Hill Square. He had brought Kate with him, leaving Massingham to supervise what remained to be done at the church. Kate had told him that at present there were only women in the house, and it seemed sensible that he should have a woman with him, particularly as it was Kate who had first broken the news. It was not a decision he had expected Massingham to welcome, and nor had he. These first interviews with the next of kin were crucial, and Massingham wanted to be there. He would work with Kate Miskin loyally and conscientiously because he respected her as a detective and that was what he was required to do. But...

:) p. 91, Ballantine Books Edition

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