This just in

V's 'Berry Invigoration' flavour (shouldn't that be 'Invigouration' anyway?) contains less caffine than V Black. I haven't compared it with the standard flavour yet, but there you go. I knew there was a reason I didn't like it.

Also, as far as American spellings creeping into NZ usage: what the hell is with spell checkers pulling me up on 'spectre' below? Apparently some barbarians spell it 'specter'! That's just stupid. The game for the Mac, which was American, I think, was called 'Spectre Challenger'. The James Bond villain was spelt that way too. Specter doesn't look nearly as scary as spectre.

Comments

While I abhor americanizms as much as you do, Oxford English Dictionary says it's "invigorate". It's not derived from the word "vigour", it's only related to it. It's from the Latin "invigorare" via French. Like "honorarium".

Then again, Oxford English Dictionary isn't to be completely trusted. After all, they prefer -ize over -ise. I once had a long protracted argument with a Dutch person who believed that -ize was the dominant spelling in Britain.

yeah.
it's kinda like 'humorous', cause i mean both "invigourate" and "humourous" look ridiculous and also because the ou-consonant-vowel thingy makes the ou want to be long, kinda like "ooooooooo" than "uh", so change it to a short o.
of course, i often write vigor and humor myself without a qualm, so feel free to disregard my opinion. but i also write specter spectre and other words which also benefit stylistically with flowery frenchfulness the british way.
perhaps the game was just trying to be classy.
i think that being in the plucked up middleground allows us to have a bit of fun with how we write.
t r a v

Yeah, I don't really have a problem with invigoration, I just had the specter thing in mind while I was writing about V - didn't even bother to look it up.

I don't think humourous looks that humourous. That's probably because I say both 'ou's in that word in almost exactly the same way. Don't you? And of course, if we were to change one...

By your rule you'd probably want the spelling to be humorus or humoros, no? Very Greek - I like the second. It should be standard.

But anyway, why can't we dicuss things we agree on. Like the moot 'that we should cast derision upon those who don't know the difference between who and whom', that is to say 'cast derision up those for whom the difference between who and whom is unclear'.

my "rule" is very general and was taught to me in something like 2nd grade phonetics (around about the same time i was advised to shove a comma before concluding 'and's in lists). it's just a guideline saying that vowels folowed by a single consonant then another vowel are generally long. When you say humourously you do not pronounce the first dipthong as long: like you say, you pronounce it the same as the second, but because there is only a single consonant between it and the next vowel sound it looks like it wants to read long, just like you pronounce the u in that word as long and would only pronounce it as short were it, say, "hummorous".
so, no, my "rule" says nothing about the final vowel sound, unless there's a silent e. and yes, exceptions abound.
but yeah, who cares (whom may i attribute a concern), i can spell for myself. ...i think....
t r a v

It's great to somebody use whom without the stupid 'to' that some people feel the need to add - it's completely unneccessary as whom directly represents the dative! I'm going to make it my job to fit as many sentences like 'whom do you give this' and 'whom does this belong' into my day!

well, yeah, i can't decide whether you're being serious or not (too many exclaimation marks) but there's nothing wrong with saying to whom. it's more clear, especially since whom is not "directly" the dative case, but really the accusative, as:
whom did you rape and murder?

that was whom used strictly as it should, in the accusative case.

now, the reason we can drop the to when using a relative pronoun in the dative case follows in the footsteps of the following example:

she gave him the book
she gave the book to him

these are the equivalent, just as:

whom did you give the book, lady
to whom did you give the book, lady

but in the end you're right, style points for dropping the to. just pointing out your error with regard to the cases.

t r a v

Yes, yes, yes, I know whom serves as *both* dative and accusative in Modern English: the cases had distinct pronouns in Old English, and they've been collapsed.

But, in the examples I gave - well, maybe not the second, not too sure about that one, but definately the first, and possibly your earlier usage - 'whom' serves as the dative. And where it serves as the dative it *really* serves as the dative, and you can drop the proposition if you want to.

Robbie: I want to.

So here's something for you to research, Dom (because I don't know the answer to this question):

Did "to help" govern the accusative or the dative in pre-modern English?

I ask this because in German (helfen) it takes the dative, but in French (aider) it takes the accusative.

She helps him.
Sie hilft ihm.
Elle l'aide.

By the way, "elle l'aide" sounds the same as "elle laide", which is Flench ("flanÃ§ais", the French equivalent of Engrish) for "she ugly".

Hilf mir.

I'd take a guess and say that French is the odd one out. Old English would have almost definitely(!) had to give help - dative.

We are Hygelac's bēodgenēatas; Bēowulf is mīn nama.

Better diacritics in this one:
BÃ©owulf maÃ¾elode bearn EcgÃ¾Ã©owes: 'NÃº wÃ© saÃ©lÃÃ°end secgan wyllaÃ° feorran cumene Ã¾Ã¦t wÃ© fundiaÃ¾ HigelÃ¡c sÃ©canÂ· waÃ©ron hÃ©r tela willum bewenedeÂ· Ã¾Ãº Ãºs wÃ©l dohtest. Gif ic Ã¾onne on eorÃ¾an Ã³wihte mÃ¦g Ã¾Ãnre mÃ³dlufan mÃ¡ran tilian, gumena dryhten, Ã°onne ic gÃ½t dyde, gÃºÃ°geweorca ic bÃ©o gearo sÃ³na gif ic Ã¾Ã¦t gefricge ofer flÃ³da begang Ã¾Ã¦t Ã¾ec ymbsittend egesan Ã¾Ã½waÃ° swÃ¡ Ã¾ec hetende hwÃlum dydon ic Ã°Ã© Ã¾Ãºsenda Ã¾egna bringe hÃ¦leÃ¾a tÃ³ helpe.

Beowulf spoke, the son of Edgetheow: 'Now we sea-farers wish to say having come from afar, that we are anxious to seek Hygelac; we here were well entertained in our desires; you have treated us well. If then on earth I can (do) anything of your affections earn more, lord of men, than I have done yet, with feats of arms, I am ready at once, if I find it out over the flood's expanse, that you neighbouring-tribes oppress with terror, as enemies to you sometimes did, I to you a thousand thanes will bring, heroes to help.
---
There are a billion instances of 'helpe' in Beowulf - no other form of 'help'.

greek and latin words for help take the dative, except for words which don't really mean to help but more like to benefit, so yeah, the french are the bastards once more.
the main entry in my reverse latin dictionary for the verb 'to help' takes the accusative but is a combination of the word iuvo, meaning benefit etc., and the prefix ad-, hence adiuvo='be a benefit towards' or something and they can get away with that kind of thing no sweat.
general guideline: french f--ks things up a little, then english goes nuts.
call me biased, t.

I also fail to recognise 'de' as meaning 'out of' or 'derived from' - I only ever think of it as 'reverse'. This flaw does not allow me to recognise the 'finite' in 'definite'.

the prefix re- means "reverse"....

de- also means down or down from, this could be the reason for your confusion. just remember how they do latin titles: de rerum natura, e.g.

t.

Well, actually, the English de doesn't exactly come directly from Latin. It also comes from the French 'des' which comes from the Latin 'dis', so I think the whole 'not the same as' meaning of reverse can come into play quite easily.

I don't buy it. I am of the opinion that the 'to' (or 'for') can only be omitted when the dative pronoun is right after to the verb (not counting do/have/other auxiliaries, I'm talking about the verb which is the meat of the sentence).

Since it doesn't work when phrasing a question not to use 'do', 'have' or another auxiliary to preface the meat-verb, using a dative 'whom' without an accompanying preposition is at best pretentious, at middlest disjointed, and at worst confusing.

The only exception is in statements turned into questions by intonation, such as "You gave whom the book?". Of course, this is exactly what I said above: it's okay when the dative pronoun is right after the meat-verb.

Because of the English language's lack of case declension, word order is pretty strict and arbitrary, and if you mess with it you're messing with the sanity of the other half of the world that's trying to figure out why the hell English is so damn stupid. Though that can be fun, I guess.

man, i really should have said "to whom may I attribute a concern".... I only dropped the "to" in a misguided effort to use the pronoun in the accusative case, which is where 'whom' belongs, and thus be one up on dom using a petty (dative) "for whom" as an example of knowing the difference between "who and whom" (nom. and acc.)
it kind of failed. robbie, as usual, has put it beauti-- no, just to dig at dom some more: robbie has executed the explanation with the most QUALITY:

"using a dative 'whom' without an accompanying preposition is at best pretentious, at middlest disjointed, and at worst confusing."

amen. how about this though: instead of allowing the word 'whom' by itself to be dative in certain circumstances, why not set who=nom. whom=acc. and to/for whom=dat. then call the construction [verb governing both a direct and indirect object][indirect object][direct object] a special case where the indirect object must be in the accusative case and immediately followed by the direct object also in the accusative case. all other indirect objects (i.e., ones not sandwiched betwwen governing verb and direct object) must be in the dative and if this is a relative pronoun that means you must use to/for whom.

this works. "dropping the to" is nonsense. 'whom' never implies the dative by itself. just as "the dog may i attribute a concern" is nonsense. were we inflected rather than using cumbersome multipurpose prepositions only to attempt discarding them.... ...then we wouldn't be speaking english.
t r a v

"'whom' never implies the dative by itself": wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

...

and anyway, i hope you don't expect me to supply your "if we change one..." with a "then we ought to change the other" just because they represent the same sound. the schwa (ə) sound, for instance, can be represented by many vowels and dipthongs, "ou" included, but usually only when it falls in the last syllable. Blame fəcking laziness if you want, but laziness is hard for anyone to blame.
t r a v

Ah, I understand the problem now! New Zealand didn't introduce phonetic spelling programs until two years after I would have gone through them - mainly because there are few years of very crappy teaching that happen when countries adopt them - while all the incumbents get the hang of it.

Then again, the whole-language approach produced better spellers (I'm the exception that proves the rule): English phonology is a long, long way from orthography.

As an aside: English phonology is a short, short way from phonography.