Re: Help needed with clue from CROSSWORD


"Flying Tortoise" <purple.mug@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:a551e3e6-3579-4784-b4a3-2692ca4563e3@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Jan 26, 9:47 pm, "grabber" <g...@xxxxx> wrote:
>"Flying Tortoise" <purple....@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>news:f72bda77-2726-4e73-835a->d7db6d117__BEGIN_MASK_n#9g02mG7!__...__END_MASK_i?a63jfAD$z__@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>On Jan 26, 8:27 pm, "grabber" <g...@xxxxx> wrote:
>> "Flying Tortoise" <purple....@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

>>news:3e2b231c-8e1d-44e1-bfc7-880901c45333@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

>> >On Jan 24, 11:21 pm, "Paul E Collins" <find_my_real_addr...@xxxxxxx>
>> >wrote:
>> >> <stei...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> >> > Could someone please help me with a clue from this month's
>> >> > CROSSWORD?
>> >> > Thanks.
>> > > Group of offspring are brilliant(7)
>> >> > I've been looking at it for days with no results!

>> >> Could it be GLITTER? (G + LITTER.)

>> >Looks good but no prizes for the clue. Group ARE brilliant? Oh dear,
>> >oh dear, oh dear!

>> I dare say I'm missing some in joke here, but as a noun of multitude,
>> "group" can surely cope with a verb in either a singular or a plural
>> form.
>Au contraire mon brave! I simply do not recognise this 'noun of
>multitude' malarkey. There is one group or there are many groups (and
>they may be all present simultaneously) and the plural can only apply

in the latter case lest confusion break out of the can of worms (of

>which I assume you would not attempt to justify the pluralisation?).
>Collective nouns are singular or they are not collective. A group
>prepares a report, comes to a decision, acts concertedly or it is not
>a group. The group members may fly in all different directions but the
>group in only one.

Your unwillingness to recognise the usage isn't a particularly strong
argument against it. Neither, I suppose, is it a good argument on the other
side simply to cite authority, for example the late Henry Fowler's neat
explanation of what is going on. (Anyone out there who has not yet acquired
a copy of the first or second edition of his Dictionary of Modern English
Usage is missing a great deal.) The lads over at the Language Log would
merely point you towards what real writers and speakers do, and laugh at you
for being out of step.

As I laugh at the definition of a 'real' writer that you and they must
therefore hold. As I am a not infrequently published writer whose work
has been subjected to the scrutiny of some of the best editors and sub-
editors on the planet I'm afraid that I will not easily wear the yoke
of 'chopped liver' that you so casually assume to be mine in that
case.

If by this you mean that you wouldn't accept their ridicule as justified, then no, obviously you wouldn't. You have a wholly different outlook from theirs, I think. But if you want black-and-white distinctions between the standard and the non-standard, then I think you are stuck with appealing either to authority or to evidence about whether the usage is or is not current, and I don't think you have a case on either count.

I have no oobjection to the language developing as it may. That
does not mean that I will stand idly by as it ceases to make any sense
at all.

The best I can do is this: Clearly a group can be a single entity. Equally
clearly, it is an aggregation of its members. Actions of the group will
sometimes be understood best by considering the group to be a single thing,
and sometimes by regarding it as a collection of things. For example: "The
group agrees to cooperate" implies an agreement with an external agency,
whereas "the group agree to cooperate" implies agreement amongst themselves.
It works very well. Why sacrifice the distinction on the altar of a
schoolmarm's dictum?

If such a dictum exists, I can assure you that it was never imparted
to me by any school teacher of my acquaintance.. I was among the first
of Britain's school pupils to be taught under the 'grammar doesn't
matter' school of English (and the last to be versed in Latin as a
matter of course). I have ne very simple criterion. Des it make sense?
"The group agree to coperate" simply does not in so far as it is
ambiguous, relies too heavily on the reader's interpretation agreeing
with that of the writer, and therefore becomes a matter of opinion and
not of fact.

This analysis seems me to be mistaken on both counts. As far as I can see, "the group agree" makes perfect sense and is entirely unambiguous. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that only the form - and never the sense - of the subject is what determines the form of the verb. In that case, the mistake would be like writing "I hates porridge". But this makes sense and is entirely unambiguous - it just uses the wrong form of the verb. We wouldn't write "hates" in this case because it neither has achieved currency nor deserves to do so by virtue of any advantage it offers. By contrast, "the group agree" is both current and allows the distinction of nuances that I illustrated. The ability to make the distinction is likely to reduce ambiguity rather than perpetrate it.

Manifestly it does not 'work well'!

Claiming this does not make it true. This usage is is neither nonsensical nor ambiguous. If it is in breach of some rule, you have cited neither prescriptive authority nor descriptive evidence for any such rule.

It is not a display
of some kind of forensic, linguistic OCD to demand that people ensure
that they mean what they say by saying what they mean.



.

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