Interesting (and strange sounding) sentence.

LarryLatham · Post by **LarryLatham** » Tue Dec 23, 2008 7:37 am

Hello all.

It's Larry Latham here. Some of you old timers may remember me from earlier times and lively discussions. I've run across a sentence in a book I'm reading which sounds curious to me as an American speaker. I suspect it may be a Britishism, and so thought I'd appeal to some Brit blokes I know lurk hereabouts.

Here's the sentence: It was not a decision he had expected Massingham to welcome, and nor had he.

Now, some of you will be able to identify the author right away, but I prefer to put that aside for the moment. What sounds strange to my ear is what comes after the comma. Does it also sound curious to a British ear? Any comments?

JuanTwoThree · Post by **JuanTwoThree** » Tue Dec 23, 2008 8:14 am

Yo, Larry.

It's extremely inelegant because you wonder just who the second "he" is and what the bracketed verb afterwards might be. "Welcomed" or "expected"?

The same goes for:

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

It could mean "and it turned out that Massingham hadn't welcomed it, as expected". That depends on stressing either "had" or "he"

and nor hád he and nor had hé

I don't think it's particularly Brit. It's bad writing.

LarryLatham · Post by **LarryLatham** » Wed Dec 24, 2008 7:10 am

Mmmmm. OK, Juan. Nice to hear from you. You think it's just poor writing, hmmm. I'd like to hear from some of our British colleagues on that. Let's see what they might have to say.

Larry

JuanTwoThree · Post by **JuanTwoThree** » Wed Dec 24, 2008 8:36 am

Don't let the nick fool you. My Britishness is impeccable. It's never been pecced as far as I know. Generations of sheep-stealers, drovers, brewers, surgeon-barbers and all kinds of stout yeomen.

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Wed Dec 24, 2008 12:00 pm

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

Oh, and welcome back (however long or brief your return may be), Larry.

JuanTwoThree · Post by **JuanTwoThree** » Wed Dec 24, 2008 12:41 pm

Quite so, that's what I was driving at with

"you wonder ......... what the bracketed verb afterwards might be"

though 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"

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.

Sally Olsen · Post by **Sally Olsen** » Wed Dec 24, 2008 4:31 pm

Larry, can't believe that you are back after leaving us in 2005. What books have you written in the meantime?

It sounds really British and thus quite understandable to me but I have just been reading several classics and I am in that mood for Christmas.

I found this in the New York Times:
PLUMBER HARRINGTON HEARD.; HE HAD NEVER USED GASOLINE, NOR HAD HE SEEN IT USED.
January 7, 1881, Wednesday

LarryLatham · Post by **LarryLatham** » Thu Dec 25, 2008 12:06 am

Hi there Fluffy and Sally. Good to talk to you again.

What has me confused, well not really confused, because I comprehend the sentence quite clearly, but curious, is the and before the nor. In American variety, I would expect the sentence to be written:

It was not..., nor had he.

Similar to Sally's quotation from the NYT headline. So, I thought perhaps it was a British convention to add the and there in that place. Something like the British, "He would not have done" in place of the American, "He would not have."

Apparently not, however, judging from all your comments here.

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Thu Dec 25, 2008 10:47 am

Welcome back Larry; I thought you were dead.Even if you are stick around as the forums favourite zombie.

It's actually the only example of 'and nor had he' in the British National Corpus. The author is P. D. James. It took me a considerable time to work out what it meant. Maybe we're simply talking punctuation here. This would seem quite all right:
It was not a decision he had expected Massingham to welcome ... and nor had he.

LarryLatham · Post by **LarryLatham** » Thu Dec 25, 2008 7:44 pm

Ahh, Stephen, you are quite right about the author. She is indeed P. D. James, inducted into the International Mystery Hall of Fame in 2008, winner of the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America, winner of the Diamond Dagger Award from the British Crime Writers Association. I am currently reading A Taste for Death, and if you've read any of her books, you know that she is a precise and careful writer. I found it difficult to imagine that she had engaged in "bad writing," despite the strange sound to my (American) ear, and so supposed it must be a British way of speaking or writing. I'm glad you could confirm that even if it seems to be rare. Thank you. I don't think an American author would have said that. But I find it charming and fully understandable.

Juan and Fluffy may be unconvinced, but perhaps that is because I did not supply enough of the surrounding context to make the sentence clear. I guess I had thought it clear enough on its own, but that may be because I knew the context.

I see that the debates continue. You all may be surprised that I look in from time to time just to see what's doing. I always feel that I haven't been away at all because the debates haven't changed in the least. Clearly you all enjoy yourselves immensely. That's wonderful. But you're all too smart for me. I'm not in the game anymore, and my mind has slowed to a trickle. It's enough for me to get up in the morning, put on a pot of coffee, pad around in my modest lodgings, fix some breakfast for myself and my wife, and settle down with a good volume like the ones I have going at the moment. (I seem always to have two or three books going at once). I do still read a bit of linguistic material. Recently read Steven Pinker's newest book, The Stuff of Thought, and then engaged in a bit of e-mail sparring with Professor Pinker. Fun, especially since he didn't agree with some of my ideas about verbs. Pity. He seems so intelligent otherwise.

Nice to see that you're all still young and contentious. And a Merry Christmas to all.

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Thu Dec 25, 2008 11:13 pm

You can't be too clogged up and wrinkly mentally if you're sparring emaillelly with Professor TenderPinkfoots (don't ask - just me havin' some fun), Larry! Sure beats what I did today (watching Doctor Who, Wallace & Gromit's 'A Matter of Loaf and Death', a few episdoes of Ren & Stimpy and Band of Brothers, and now perhaps Vantage Point). The article articles can wait...

LarryLatham · Post by **LarryLatham** » Thu Dec 25, 2008 11:43 pm

Well, admittedly he did most of the heavy lifting. Mostly what I did was try to ask what I hoped sounded like intelligent questions. It was enough to intrigue him for a few back and forths, but I doubt his mind was stretched.

My youngest son (who is studying in Brighton, England this year...U of Sussex) told me he was looking forward to spending the day with Wallace and Gromit...one of his favorites. You must be exhausted, Fluffy. Sounds like a whole years' worth of watching to me. I hope you've also had too many sweets and drunk too much coffee or tea. (Or maybe something a bit stronger!)

Sally Olsen · Post by **Sally Olsen** » Fri Dec 26, 2008 3:42 am

Glad you are still looking in Larry. It sounds like you all had a great Christmas. My Christmas book was the latest from Oliver Sacks - Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain. Really looking forward to it. I like PD James as well but was reviewing some of the things available on the net including anything by Agatha Christie. Nice to have holidays. To all: May 2009 be your best year yet.

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Sun Dec 28, 2008 8:07 pm

Hi Larry! Nice to hear from you again.

I agree it's badly worded, and needed to re-read it a few times with stresses on different words to get any sense out of it. I figured that had is short for had welcomed and so he must be Massingham, simply because otherwise it would mean He hadn't expected it, nor had he expected it, which would just be superfluous. But it's still an unnecessary demand being placed on the reader.

I too watched Dr Who and Wallace and Gromit, though I must say I didn't find the latter up to its usual standard.

LarryLatham · Post by **LarryLatham** » Mon Dec 29, 2008 12:42 am

"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.