Timeline for differentiating between all that and what
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
12 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| May 7, 2015 at 21:14 | comment | added | Sven Yargs | Thanks for considering my rationale, anyway. I gather from your answer that you view the wording "Like everyone else in this room, I..." and the wording "Like the other people in this room, I..." to contain, respectively, a superfluous "else" and a superfluous "other." I don't see it that way. Nor do I think that you could say to someone "Look, I made a mistake. I am like a human being," and not have that person think you were speaking very oddly. But there is plenty of room in English for disagreements like ours. | |
| May 7, 2015 at 18:56 | comment | added | DCShannon | @SvenYargs Thanks. I now see what you mean, but I disagree with your basic premise. Another viewpoint: (1) "I am like a human being" is fine, because I'm a human being, and human beings are like human beings. (2) I wouldn't 'correct' the wording because the wording is fine. The speaker didn't 'mean' to include them in the people attending the meeting. They are included, as they are at the meeting. (3) This example is slightly different, as it may not be obvious whether the person is drunk or not, whereas listeners can easily tell that the previous speaker is at the meeting. | |
| May 7, 2015 at 10:38 | history | edited | Sven Yargs | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 7 characters in body
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| May 7, 2015 at 8:58 | history | edited | Sven Yargs | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Corrected a paragraph that went awry because I accidentally omitted a word from the quotation I was discussing there.
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| May 7, 2015 at 8:34 | comment | added | Sven Yargs | @BrianHitchcock: You're right. When I retyped that sentence, I accidentally omitted the (as I see it) undesirable that. I'll restore it at once, and then I'll try to think of something to say about it beyond the subjective assertion that the sentence is better for its absence. | |
| May 7, 2015 at 8:19 | comment | added | Brian Hitchcock | @Sven Yarga: Please address, in your answer, the extraneous "that" in OP's first rephrasing. You seem to have ignored it. | |
| May 7, 2015 at 5:25 | comment | added | Sven Yargs | But suppose that my statement instead began, “Like every drunk person attending this meeting, I xxxxx.” In this case, am I claiming to be drunk (that is, am I claiming a place among the class of people I’ve designated as “every drunk person attending this meeting”)? Or am I saying that, although not drunk myself, I xxxxx just as all of the drunk people attending the meeting do? One simple way to resolve this ambiguity is to include other if I mean to identify myself as a drunk attending the meeting, and to leave it out if not. [3 of 3] | |
| May 7, 2015 at 5:25 | comment | added | Sven Yargs | Now let’s return to my earlier example of people at a meeting. If I say “Like everyone attending this meeting, I xxxxx,” a hearer will automatically (and unconsciously) correct my wording to the intended “Like everyone else attending this meeting, I xxxxx.” Why? Because I’m obviously someone and I’m obviously attending the meeting, so I must have meant to include myself among the people attending the meeting, and not merely to say that I resemble such people. [2 of 3] | |
| May 7, 2015 at 5:24 | comment | added | Sven Yargs | @DCShannon: The problem isn't with "everyone"; it's with "like." If I say "I am like a human being," it sounds weird—because I'm not just "like" a human being, I am one. And if I replace "a human being" in that sentence with "every human being," the problem persists: I am still implicitly presenting myself as resembling human beings rather than counting myself as one. That's why I would do well to include the word other in sentences of the type "I am like every other human being." By doing so, I reserve a spot for myself in the same category (human being). If not, not. [1 of 3] | |
| May 7, 2015 at 2:32 | comment | added | DCShannon | What about 'everyone' seems to exclude the speaker to you? If I'm one of the people attending the meeting, then I'm part of "everyone attending the meeting", and statement that follows is true of them. There's nothing wrong with that phrasing. | |
| May 7, 2015 at 2:06 | history | edited | Sven Yargs | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 11 characters in body
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| Nov 15, 2014 at 0:04 | history | answered | Sven Yargs | CC BY-SA 3.0 |