Is "unputdownable" really a word?

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Raphi'Elohim

If I was a Brit I would probably say Americans are butchering the English language but then again I am American. One thing that annoys me is that Americans say math instead of maths. It is supposed to be maths because within the last 2 centuries or at least the last century maths has expanded to cover like at least 70-90 different sub-disciplines.

But aren't the words "math" and "maths" both just abbreviations for mathematics?

[barryem]

The linguists are fond of saying that dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive. They tell us how words have been used up till now, not how we're supposed to use them. If enough of us use a new word it gets entered into the dictionary.

Language is always changing. In King James time when they translated the New Testament they used words like "thee" and "thine" because 200 years earlier those were common words. But in King James time they were already using "you" and "yours" out loud. They just hadn't changed the spelling yet. "Thee" was pronounced "you". Later the spelling also changed.

As for us Americans butchering the English language, there was a TV documentary by Melvyn Bragg, an British historian and linguist and writer, called "The Adventure of the English Language" in 2003 and in one of the episodes he said that the southern states in the USA speak what is a lot closer to the English of the 17th century than is spoken in England today. It's those Brits that are butchering our English.

He also mentioned that over 50% of the English speakers in the world are in India so if we want to be democratic and let the majority rule, they're the only ones getting it right. The rest of us are butchering our language.

Barry

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Raphi'Elohim

If I was a Brit I would probably say Americans are butchering the English language but then again I am American. One thing that annoys me is that Americans say math instead of maths. It is supposed to be maths because within the last 2 centuries or at least the last century maths has expanded to cover like at least 70-90 different sub-disciplines.

Try this. It's a collective noun:

Mathematics is a field of study/work. Abbreviated to math.
Singular aggregration of related/similar specializations/variations.

Just as Engineering is a singular aggregation of related/similar specializations and medicine is an aggregation of related specializations.

Treating math as a singular is treating it as a collective. A collection of related specializations.

I'll leave it to the brits to explain why they treat the medicine and engineering fields as collectives but not math.

[MarjaE]

English usually has preposition+verb or verb (pause) preposition. "uplift" and "lift up" so I would expect *"downput" or "put down" but "putdown" is an exception to the rule.

And I would expect *"undownputable" instead of the more common "unputdownable".

Originally Posted by barryem

Language is always changing. In King James time when they translated the New Testament they used words like "thee" and "thine" because 200 years earlier those were common words. But in King James time they were already using "you" and "yours" out loud. They just hadn't changed the spelling yet. "Thee" was pronounced "you". Later the spelling also changed.

"Thou" is singular, "you" is plural.

At the time, "you" was considered more polite, as in French, but "thou" was a more precise translation of the Greek, especially when they wanted to speak of G'd.

[teija]

Originally Posted by MarjaE

English usually has preposition+verb or verb (pause) preposition. "uplift" and "lift up" so I would expect *"downput" or "put down" but "putdown" is an exception to the rule.

And I would expect *"undownputable" instead of the more common "unputdownable".

Excellent observation!

"undownputable" -- I think I love it even more than unputdownable!

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by barryem

As for us Americans butchering the English language, there was a TV documentary by Melvyn Bragg, an British historian and linguist and writer, called "The Adventure of the English Language" in 2003 and in one of the episodes he said that the southern states in the USA speak what is a lot closer to the English of the 17th century than is spoken in England today. It's those Brits that are butchering our English.

Barry

Appalachia and Newfoundland are the closest to 17th and 18th century English, which only makes sense since that is when they were colonized. Being mostly isolated for centuries they were spared the various pronunciation fads since then.

The "veddy proper" british version of today is mostly the product of the 19th century upper crust attempt to standardize away from the lower classes, with a dose of early 20th BBC style guide, based on the 1869 "Received Pronunciation" guide. Funny thing: even in England itself it isn't particularly common. Single digit use.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_Pronunciation

It was mandatory on the BBC until WWII when Nazi broadcasts forced a slight loosening.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_hRQq5e7Wi0

English is simply too widespread and too useful to be constrained by anybody's idea of what is and isn't proper.

(As for American English, the most prominent "official" accent is the flat Midwestern version adopted by TV broadcasters in the 50's and 60's. The BBC would be proud.)

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by MarjaE

"Thou" is singular, "you" is plural.

You must not be from Texas because there even "you'all" isn't plural. If you talking about more than one person it's "all you'all."

[lumpynose]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Try this. It's a collective noun:

Mathematics is a field of study/work. Abbreviated to math.
Singular aggregration of related/similar specializations/variations.

Just as Engineering is a singular aggregation of related/similar specializations and medicine is an aggregation of related specializations.

Treating math as a singular is treating it as a collective. A collection of related specializations.

I'll leave it to the brits to explain why they treat the medicine and engineering fields as collectives but not math.

English is incredibly full of exceptions. I've always wondered if any other languages are as bad.

The other oddity to me about plurals with the Brits is how they treat company names as plural; e.g., they'd say "Amazon are releasing a new Kindle."

[leebase]

Funny topic on American English from a Finnish Commedian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAGcDi0DRtU

[JSWolf]

The unputdownable books I've read have not mentioned being unputdownable in the descriptions.

[Pulpmeister]

An abbreviation is a short form for convenience. Some abbreviations are in fact truncations, others are condensations. Or, to put it another way, some take off the end of the word, some take a pile of stuff out of the middle of the word.

With Math/maths. Americans truncate, British (and Aussies) condense.

And because it's customary, the rules are so elastic as to be invisible. My favourite is Mr Mrs Miss Ms.

Mister is condensed to Mr; Mrs is made up of Mr with an s added. (Why? I know not; although of course the r could be considered to be taken from the r in Mistress). Miss Mrs and Ms are all short forms of Mistress, but only Miss and Ms are obvious abbreviations of Mistress, and they are both condensations, as is Mr for Mister. Miss became a word in its own right, and Mrs is frequently spelled out in dialogue as Missus, making the abbreviation a word in its own right.

The eccentric byways of English are a lot of its charm (and flexibility).

As an added superfluous pedantry, I was taught very many years ago that abbreviations by truncation had to have a full top after them to indicate it, but condensations didn't because they used the last letter of the word. Which I always thought odd. What of all those saints, St. Andrew, etc; and things in street names, like Tce, Rd, Ave, Hwy, which usually had full stops, contrary to the "rule". I suspect that this odd full stop rule was just bee in the bonnet of one of my teachers of that era.

[lumpynose]

Originally Posted by Pulpmeister

and things in street names, like Tce, Rd, Ave, Hwy, which usually had full stops, contrary to the "rule"

A little heads up in case you're ever driving in Southern California. There are a lot of canyons there (apparently previously spelled in the Spanish way, cañon), and some streets have Canyon in their name. I hadn't been there in a while and was confused by freeway signs saying something like "Silver Cyn 1 mile". It took me a while before I realized that Cyn was an abbreviation for Canyon.

[Witty Username]

I was reading a book about anti-gravity technology, I couldn't put it down.

[issybird]

With all of these overused and hyperbolic words, I tend to think their presence proves the inverse. In other words, if you call it unputdownable, it ain't.

There are a lot of other words like that; world-class is an example. You frequently see a statement along the lines of, "Peoria is a world-class city." Well, if not Peoria, a city like Boston. It's not. And the proof is that you never, ever see "New York is a world-class city" or "London is a world-class city" or "Tokyo is a world-class city." If you have to tell people something that is self-evident when accurate, then you flag the lie.

It bothers me most when a useful word is denatured through overuse. "Iconic," I'm looking at you. So very many things, trivial, silly, pedestrian, are described as "iconic" these days that it can no longer be used to describe something that truly has that status without trivializing it.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by issybird

With all of these overused and hyperbolic words, I tend to think their presence proves the inverse. In other words, if you call it unputdownable, it ain't.

There are a lot of other words like that; world-class is an example. You frequently see a statement along the lines of, "Peoria is a world-class city." Well, if not Peoria, a city like Boston. It's not. And the proof is that you never, ever see "New York is a world-class city" or "London is a world-class city" or "Tokyo is a world-class city." If you have to tell people something that is self-evident when accurate, then you flag the lie.

It bothers me most when a useful word is denatured through overuse. "Iconic," I'm looking at you. So very many things, trivial, silly, pedestrian, are described as "iconic" these days that it can no longer be used to describe something that truly has that status without trivializing it.

What else is a turn off in a book description is when the book is described to be like some other author's book(s).