[Magdalen] "Formal Speech"

[Grace Cangialosi]

I have a question about the use of the word "fraught." I always thought it
was part of a phrase such as "The situation was fraught with danger."  Now,
however, it seems to be used simply as a stand alone adjective:  "The
situation was fraught."

On Sat, Mar 7, 2015 at 9:08 PM, Grace Cangialosi <gracecan at gmail.com> wrote:

> Then there's "Me and him went to the store."  Like fingernails on
> chalkboard!  (Now, there's an expression that won't mean a thing to anyone
> in a few years...)
>
> On Sat, Mar 7, 2015 at 7:59 PM, Jay Weigel <jay.weigel at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> And I just made one of my own, thanks to this keyboard....obviously.
>>
>> On Saturday, March 7, 2015, Jay Weigel <jay.weigel at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > I don't care too awfully much about split infinitives or ending a
>> sentence
>> > with a preposition, but there are some things that drive me absolutely
>> > nuts. "Between you and I" will just about make me scream out loud, and
>> > "between she and I" makes me want to hit someone or something.
>> > "Irregardless" is merely irritating, but "flaunt" instead of "flout" is
>> a
>> > teeth-grinder. And don't get me started on spelling errors, especially
>> > online ones....obiously proofreading is a lost art.
>> >
>> > On Saturday, March 7, 2015, Scott Knitter <scottknitter at gmail.com
>> > <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','scottknitter at gmail.com');>> wrote:
>> >
>> >> A lot of this depends on what genre of communication one is doing, of
>> >> course. There are "house styles" for various publications that do
>> >> employ various selections of rules that are no longer universally
>> >> applicable: some may have a conservative style that would use "whom"
>> >> (which I think is still a rule, if one is writing something formal
>> >> like a dissertation or a documentary piece in The New Yorker).
>> >>
>> >> I'm on the editorial board at Hewlett-Packard; our main job is to
>> >> update the HP Writing Style Guide every summer. We argue about things
>> >> like our standing rule against using "over" when you really mean "more
>> >> than." The chairman doesn't even care about this rule anymore, but
>> >> it's been kept mainly to facilitate translation (aka "localization");
>> >> more precise English helps translators translate more quickly and
>> >> correctly.
>> >>
>> >> Other things that have often been thought illegal, like split
>> >> infinitives, aren't forbidden in our style guide, but I do fix them if
>> >> they sound bad and the fixed version would sound better. It's easy
>> >> enough to change "The system helps users to more quickly create
>> >> documents" to "The system helps users to create documents more
>> >> quickly."
>> >>
>> >> More and more people are making case errors lately, like "Obama paid a
>> >> visit to we who worked on his campaign," and that just sounds nuts to
>> >> me. Case is much simpler in English than in many other languages, and
>> >> that's one rule, or set of rules, worth keeping. Mainly I think that
>> >> error comes from misjudging which part of the sentence is the main one
>> >> and which is the relative clause. Diagramming still helps!
>> >>
>> >> On Sat, Mar 7, 2015 at 2:07 PM, Ann Markle <ann.markle at aya.yale.edu>
>> >> wrote:
>> >> > It must be that I'm in a different universe.  There are grammatical
>> >> rules,
>> >> > yes.  But it has been acceptable to end sentences with prepositions
>> for
>> >> > DECADES.  Where have some been during those decades?  Evidently not
>> >> reading
>> >> > nor writing, nor communicating with 20th and 21st Century
>> grammarians.
>> >> > Nobody uses "whom" anymore.  That's not about sloppiness, it's about
>> >> > evolution (slower, but inevitable).  I am not an English class
>> dropout,
>> >> but
>> >> > someone who keeps up on the (current, late 20th Century) formal
>> rules of
>> >> > usage.  Stay current, or accept one's status as a dinosaur!  Sorry,
>> and
>> >> no
>> >> > disrespect meant to my (not so very, but also not very current)
>> elders!
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Scott R. Knitter
>> >> Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois USA
>> >>
>> >
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Grace Cangialosi
> Ruckersville, VA
>
> It's a good thing Mary didn't have to wait for a Doctrine of the
> Incarnation
> before she said "Yes" to God.
>



-- 
Grace Cangialosi
Ruckersville, VA

It's a good thing Mary didn't have to wait for a Doctrine of the
Incarnation
before she said "Yes" to God.