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alphabet

Sep 10, 2024 05:09

Here's the problem. Suppose someone asks about "singular they" and you post an answer saying it's ugly. Someone else posts an answer, citing Fowler, saying it's perfectly good. Who do we upvote? How do we mark the question as answered?

Cerberus

Sep 10, 2024 05:07

I don't agree with Fowler on everything, it's not the Iliad or something.

Cerberus

Sep 10, 2024 05:04

@alphabet I don't know or use many. But Fowler's has a good sense of style.

MetaEd

Jul 22, 2024 15:58

I don't know about Fowler, but I do.

Cerberus

Jul 22, 2024 15:58

I'm sure Fowler has something to say about this, though!

Mitch

May 6, 2024 16:05

0

Q: Does anybody read Fowler's books on English usage for anything other than laughs today (2024)?

And did Fowler himself follow his advice on how to write? All those run-on sentences would be laughed out of court today.

present-day-english

tchrist

Feb 26, 2024 02:58

> H. W. Fowler (1926): "Welsh Rabbit is amusing and right. Welsh Rarebit is stupid and wrong."

tchrist

Jan 7, 2024 01:23

> * 1908 Those wrought stones..are now securely clamped to the south wall. —E. Fowler, Between Trent & Ancholme 14
* 1960 We had barely succeeded in tying our boat securely to the bank. —W. Harris, Palace of Peacock iv. 39
* 2004 The bender is mounted securely in the jaws of an engineer's vice. —Tool & Machinery Catalogue 2005 (Axminster Power Tool Centre Ltd.) ii. 25/2

tchrist

Jan 5, 2024 04:40

> 1356–7 Marescalcia. In uno malleo ferr. et 1 poleax, 3 Wharelwegges faciendis de proprio ferro. in J. T. Fowler, Extracts Account Rolls of Abbey of Durham (1899) vol. II. 557 (Middle English Dictionary)

CowperKettle

Nov 20, 2023 12:51

Bluebeard

"Bluebeard" (French: Barbe bleue, [baʁb(ə) blø]) is a French folktale, the most famous surviving version of which was written by Charles Perrault and first published by Barbin in Paris in 1697 in Histoires ou contes du temps passé. The tale tells the story of a wealthy man in the habit of murdering his wives and the attempts of the present one to avoid the fate of her predecessors. "The White Dove", "The Robber Bridegroom", and "Fitcher's Bird" (also called "Fowler's Fowl") are tales similar to "Bluebeard". The notoriety of the tale is such that Merriam-Webster gives the word "Bluebeard" th...

tchrist

Jul 14, 2023 00:43

> Follow the Fowler rule if you want to; it’s up to you. But don’t tell me that it’s crucial or that the best writers respect it. It’s a time-wasting early-20th-century fetish, a bogeyman rule undeserving of the attention of intelligent grownups.

Cerberus

Jul 14, 2023 00:00

See Fowler's.

Cerberus

Apr 15, 2023 00:12

I suspect Fowler and other style guides will recommend against it.

Cerberus

Dec 28, 2022 03:25

As Fowler says, idiom is preferred over regularity if available.

Mitch

Oct 15, 2022 17:13

@Cerberus Fowler? Isn't he some old dude?

Cerberus

Oct 15, 2022 17:13

Or just read Fowler.

tchrist

Dec 6, 2021 15:04

pace Fowler.

tchrist

Aug 7, 2021 02:55

> †1. To carve. Hence kirving-knife, carving-knife. Obsolete. rare.

1484–5 in J. T. Fowler Extracts Acct. Rolls Abbey of Durham (1901) III. 649 Pro emundacione de le kirvyngknyffez d'ni Prioris, 12d.

Cerberus

Jan 8, 2019 21:58

I think Fowler says so.

Mitch

Dec 9, 2018 18:03

('pedantry and purism' from Fowler)

Tonepoet

Dec 1, 2018 02:08

@Cerberus I do not even know where my copy of Fowler's usage guide is, and while he did have insight on punctuation, his work was primarily focused on word distinction. Chicago would be considered the primary influencer of punctuation, and they offer the P.D.F. for download off of their website so I can search it very easily. Maybe I'll see what Fowler has to see about it later.

Cerberus

Dec 1, 2018 02:02

Why not consult Fowler?

Cerberus

Nov 17, 2018 18:22

But I think Fowler is good.

Will Hunting

Nov 17, 2018 18:20

@Cerberus You said you read Fowler before right? What do you think of the book?

Cerberus

Oct 18, 2018 22:52

But maybe Fowler has more to say about this.

Cerberus

Aug 28, 2018 13:04

@Mitch I'm sure Fowler already had several of those clichés. People have always disliked clichés.

Cerberus

Aug 20, 2018 22:42

Fowler has a very nice article on metaphors in which Cnut appears several times.

sumelic

Mar 24, 2018 16:31

I think some style guides like Fowler have expressed a preference for the e-less version because it's more etymological. But that counts for little, as shown by the typical British English spellings of "kerb" and "tyre".

Gasparo

Feb 18, 2018 21:55

@M.A.R. It makes him a genius. He recommends the Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage as the very best usage guide today, not Fowler or Strunk and White or Garner.

Tonepoet

Jan 26, 2018 03:09

However, I somehow doubt that it would be appreciated, and I fall just a little short of the conviction necessary to do it mostly just thanks to a couple of odd H.W. Fowler's examples. I have still been trying to avoid preposition stranding though, and sometimes resort to using adverbs of time as a prepositional object. Incidentally, most of the grammar I have read on the subject is from pro-stranders.

Tonepoet

Jan 19, 2018 16:22

@Cerberus The Fowler Bros are kinda neutral about it, maybe mildly against it. They call it something ugly, but suggest you shouldn't let it preoccupy your thoughts in consideration of much more ugly things.

Cerberus

Jan 19, 2018 16:17

@Tonepoet I wouldn't know. But I could look it up in The King's English for you, or in Fowler's.

Cerberus

Dec 30, 2017 17:45

Tacet Fowler.

Cerberus

Dec 30, 2017 17:44

I will consult Fowler's.

Cerberus

Aug 8, 2017 22:55

Fowler's (3rd ed.) also recommends a mere preceding comma.

Tonepoet

Jul 18, 2017 16:40

@Mitch Another interesting fact about Noah Webster is that he co-founded the Armherst College with Emily Dickinson's grandpa, Samuel Fowler Dickinson. Emily Dickinson herself personally used Webster's dictionary according to familial reports.

Tonepoet

Jul 18, 2017 15:32

@Cerberus Hmm, you're so insistent. I wonder what Fowler has to say about the matter, if anything at all.

Cerberus

May 13, 2017 03:47

As to able v. ible, Fowler has a rule for that.

Tonepoet

May 13, 2017 03:29

"'A Russian army is a solid machine, as many war-famous generals have found to their cost. — Times.'

Such compounds are of course much used ; but they are ugly when they are otiose ; it might be worth while to talk of a war-famous brewer, or of a peace-famous general, just as we often have occasion to speak of a carpet-knight, but of a carpet-broom only if it is necessary to guard against mistake." — The King's English by H.W. and F.G. Fowler.

Tonepoet

May 13, 2017 03:04

@Cerberus I see. How unfortunate. Anyway Cerberus, I was reading The King's English and I must say that the Fowler Brothers have an interesting vocabulary. I was reading the section on neologisms and saw the word otiose, which has one of the most intriguing definitions I've seen in a dictionary. The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia defines it as meaning:

Tonepoet

May 8, 2017 23:15

@Cerberus "The usual protest must be made, to be treated no doubt with the usual disregard. The difficulty is that some French, Latin and other words are now also English, though the fiction that they are not is still kept up by italics and (with French words) conscientious efforts at pronunciation." – The King's English, third edition, by H.W. and F.G. Fowler.

Tonepoet

Apr 22, 2017 23:30

Then again, I suppose you already saw that comment, otherwise the specific article doesn't make sense. The subject we were discussing several days ago in chat was the "preposition at end", as Fowler put it, rule.

devth

Apr 21, 2017 16:51

I meant I'm maybe not the target audience for "Fowler's Modern English Usage" :)

Cerberus

Apr 21, 2017 16:49

Oh, no, Fowler's style book Modern English Usage.

devth

Apr 21, 2017 16:47

Karen Joy Fowler?

devth

Apr 21, 2017 16:47

as in Martin Fowler of ThoughtWorks?

Cerberus

Apr 21, 2017 16:46

Fowler is my hero.

Tonepoet

Apr 3, 2017 13:50

@englishstudent Anyway it's not so odd, and not even unprecedented with A.D.E.L. It was Emily Dickinson's dictionary of choice.Martha Dickinson Bianchi is on record as saying her aunt Emily read it as a priest his breviary and it makes a considerable amount of sense. Aside from being inarguably the best dictionary in 1844, the Armhest College was cofounded by Noah Webster and her grandfather Samuel Fowler Dickinson.

Tonepoet

Mar 12, 2017 03:00

I really do think the trickiest thing may just be learning the difference between shall and will these days. I usually just try to cheat my way past it with contractions, if able. The Kings English by The Fowler Brothers gives much information about it, but I fear their allegation that it may be futile for anybody who hadn't learned it natively to even try is possibly correct.

Cerberus

Mar 7, 2017 18:17

But I think Fowler's "vivid" is a better criterion than "new".