Wintery weather in December is hardly untimely, Jan, I agree, but it began in November

Um, that doesn't alter the fact that the sentence is ungrammatical.

Why are you and Alex trying to prove me wrong when I'm clearly right?

Jan

Poor usage is poor grammar. Grammar encompasses sentence construction and the way words are used.

Hmm. Isn't it stretching the ordinary meaning of grammar to extend it to the way words are used? What about Lewis Carroll:

Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch

I'd say that's perfectly grammatical. It's just that it don't make no sense innit?

Blimey, LOL! OK, here's a definition of grammar just lifted from Google:

gram·mar (grmr)
n.
1.
a. The study of how words and their component parts combine to form sentences.
b. The study of structural relationships in language or in a language, sometimes including pronunciation, meaning, and linguistic history.
2.
a. The system of inflections, syntax, and word formation of a language.
b. The system of rules implicit in a language, viewed as a mechanism for generating all sentences possible in that language.
3.
a. A normative or prescriptive set of rules setting forth the current standard of usage for pedagogical or reference purposes.
b. Writing or speech judged with regard to such a set of rules.

I think you'll agree that, using the above as a definition of grammar, the sentence I quoted was ungrammatical.

a. The study of how words and their component parts combine to form sentences.

That is what I was saying, you seem to have interpreted that as 'original word usage is ungrammatical', which is not what I said.

Or are you having me on?

Jan

This is an example of nonsensical syntax - part of grammar, I agree. But grammatically it's correct - a bit like "Colourless green ideas sleep furiously" the Noam Chomsky example.

Alex, when you say winter doesn't technically start till.... where are you getting that date from?

Astronomical definitions:

Spring (or vernal) equinox is within a day of 21st March (defined by the Gregorian calendar, which includes leap-days to keep the calendar year in synchronisation with the time when the Sun crosses the plane of the ecliptic from south to north).

First day of summer is around 21st June.

Autumn equinox is around 21st August (technically, the point at which the sun crosses the plane of the ecliptic going from north to south).

First day of winter is around 21st December.

('around' in the above means 'within a day of' )

Why are you and Alex trying to prove me wrong when I'm clearly right?

Not by any definition of 'grammar' that would be recognised by a student of languages. I speak French, Russian and German, and in all of those languages I could form grammatically correct sentences which were nevertheless gobbledegook (or 'abracadabra', in Russian) as far as meaning is concerned.

Grammar concerns itself with the form of verbs, the usage of prepositions, nouns, adjectives, adverbs and other parts of speach, and the usage and placement of subject, direct object, indirect object, and other sentence elements. Whether, when you've constructed a sentence which follows all of the relevant rules in the target language, that sentence makes any logical sense has nothing to do with grammar. All grammar dictates is that the sentence has some linguistic sense.

By your definition, a lot of poems and song lyrics would be ungrammatical (e.g. 'I am the walrus' ).

Alex

How can something with 'nonsensical syntax' be grammatically correct?

If she'd said 'It may now be July, but we're getting an early taste of winter,' it would have made more sense (if she'd said it in July, of course). If a sentence doesn't convey its intended meaning it has failed, even if deemed to be grammatically correct.

Ah well, perhaps I'm wrong about it being grammatically incorrect, but it was still poor use of English and it annoys me.

That was the point of my original post, but it got lost along the way.

Jan

Alex, most people would consider this time of the year to be winter, regardless of the official start date. Why did you pick up on that instead of the point I was trying to make about poor use of English on TV? OK, if I was wrong about the definition of 'grammar', I don't mind being corrected, but both the examples I gave were not successful sentences, grammatically correct or not.

I just wanted to express an opinion on something that I thought would be a bugbear to most people here, but empathy is not forthcoming, so I must be wrong!

This is the second time you've jumped on me, Alex, I'm at a loss to know why.

Jan

This is the second time you've jumped on me, Alex, I'm at a loss to know why.

You're making it sound as if they were personal attacks, rather than counter-arguments to your claims of bad grammar. This thread is, after all, about wrongly-applied technical ignorance.

Alex

'Twas brillig and the slithey toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe
All mimsy were the borogroves
And the mome raths outgrabe.'

I remember being told in school that Jabberocky was proof we knew English grammar already. We could recognise which parts of speech in this were nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc, because we knew how English word order and endings worked. It's possible to recognise it's grammatically correct even when it's nonsense.

Sheila

<Added>

sorry-just spotted it's already been used

Um, that doesn't alter the fact that the sentence is ungrammatical. Why are you and Alex trying to prove me wrong when I'm clearly right?

I'm not sure you are right, but maybe part of the confusion is because you're saying more than one thing? I was answering this, from you:

nonsense. Wintery weather in December is hardly untimely.

You do seem a bit prickly, Jan!

Alex, I know those are the astronomical definitions, but they are marking particular events and don't represent the real seasons IMV. Why would all the cold weather be *after* the shortest day, and all the warm weather be *after* the longest day? It makes much more sense for the cold and warm spells to be spread around the shortest day and longest day *periods*.

Deb

but both the examples I gave were not successful sentences, grammatically correct or not.

I think we're all in agreement that they are not successful sentences, but they are unsuccessful for different reasons neither of which can be attributed to grammar.

The first is unsuccessful because most people regard December as being in winter, which makes the attempted contrast fall flat; and the second is ambiguous because it contains two nouns and a pronoun which might refer to either of them.

Why would all the cold weather be *after* the shortest day, and all the warm weather be *after* the longest day?

Um. Because the air contains water vapour, which, having a very high specific heat capacity, has the effect of delaying its heating or cooling. Hence, the coldest temperatures occur after the middle of winter (because the air takes time to cool), while the warmest ones happen after the middle of summer (because the air takes time to heat up). Just to reinforce that, the peak sea temperatures around the UK tend to be even later, in September.

Alex

Alex, I accept all that, but when you say 'the middle of winter' and 'the middle of summer', are you talking about the solstices, or the middle of each defined by the start being the solstice?

Wonderful example of misplaced pedantry:

I retweeted a very nice tweet of Jane Smith's:

RT @hprw: RT @etherjammer: "Real women use PC's"? "Real women use Mac's"? REAL WOMEN USE APOSTROPHES CORRECTLY

And pedant tweeted:

Both apostrophes correct, plural acronyms have 's @itchofwriting @hprw @etherjammer: "Real women use PC's"? "Real women use Mac's"?

and I checked, just in case I was wrong, and I'm not. So Itweeted

@pjbryant No apostrophes for plurals of acronyms according to New Hart's Rules. And neither "PC" nor "Mac" is an acronym anyway.

Emma

Winter begins in June in Australia & that's a fact...

What the +**^ does it matter anyway? Jan's point is quite clear.

Are you all snowed-in or something - maybe you've been locked up by the grammar police?

Yes? Oh well... Does this make sense?

"Can I please have a bigger space between land and and and and and sea?"

It does if you are taking an order for a webpage layout from the marketing director of Landandsea Ltd. Whoops that should be Land and Sea Ltd.

Onwards and upwards!

Michael