[OT] readability (was Re: [plug] stripping potentially nasty attachments)

[James Devenish]

In message <Pine.LNX.4.44.0403281108320.10541-100000 at BBRH73.busby.net>
on Sun, Mar 28, 2004 at 11:22:11AM +0800, Bret Busby wrote:
> Speaking of what is said on TV,...one thing that is amazing,...is
> the abuse of the word "is";

"There's two of them," "How's things," etc. Ugly in writing. While the
simplification of language seems entirely appropriate in speech (and
often happens inadvertently because speech is impromptu and very slow
compared to written language), reading efficiency subsequently suffers.
It took me a long time to understand the attitude that "overuse of
computers leads to illiteracy" -- I always thought that computer use
would necessarily lead to better literacy because everyone has to read
and write everything! But it doesn't seem to work that way -- you have
to have a basic level of literacy to use a computer independently, but
you can then get away with little further increase.

With regards to "is/are", it common in Australia to prefer that
collective nouns be treated as singular, rather than plural. For
example, "Microsoft is" rather than "Microsoft are" and "the Howard
government is" rather than "the Howard government are". Perhaps this
contributes to the is/are issue.

Oddly, I find that "there are a box and a bag" sounds odd whereas "there
is a box and a bag" sounds okay (my mistake). I suppose this is to me
analogous to "he has" versus "they have" -- the verb is reflecting the
plurality of the subject, not the object. "There" is weird because it
takes the role of the grammatical subject without actually being the
subject, which is perhaps one thing that makes "is" vs. "are" confusing.

Compared to North Americans, Australians still seem to have a better
grasp of the difference between nouns and verbs. (And have you ever
noticed how US slang verbs are often undeclined and lack tense?) I also
don't understand the US phrases "the hell with it" and "I could care
less". /Surely/ Australians make far more sense with "to hell with it"
and "I couldn't care less".

> But, then, maori is more fun, as, in maori, there are three cases - 
> singular, dual, and plural;

That must make lying and exaggeration harder ;-)