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The Awful German Language (1880)

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Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#191

Post by dataflow »

lmm wrote: post #188
sharken wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Admittedly English is not my primary language, but "She would have had to have been being watched" seems to be a construct used in a class, but not something you would hear in day-to-day English.

Obviously the situation is fairly rare, but it sounds like a perfectly natural thing to say when it's true. I don't think it's an artificial example at all (whereas e.g. no-one actually says "buffalo" as a verb).

> it sounds like a perfectly natural thing to say when it's true

It doesn't sound natural to me at all; it sounds incredibly awkward to me. In a situation like that, I think people would say something like "someone would've been watching her at that moment".

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#192

Post by cycomanic »

maxnoe wrote: post #180
cycomanic wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it weird that many English natives try to claim that English grammar is in fact complex (you are by far not the first). I think it might be because in general many don't speak another language and the most common second language is Spanish which has also a very "simple" grammar. Regarding your example with the gerund, yes it is subtle, but similar subtleties exist in German, e.g. The difference between perfect…

German Goethe researchers claim 90.000 for Goethe im their dictionary of Goethe's work: https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goethe-W%C3%B6rterbuch

Interesting, I wonder if this is due to a difference of counting compound words?

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#193

Post by cycomanic »

andensande wrote: post #94
locallost wrote: post #84

As someone who's had to (or maybe wanted to) learn both english and german, I'd say german has a steeper initial learning curve, but it becomes easier later, whereas english can be easy to get going, but it's difficult to master (obviously the spelling, but also the more advanced use of tenses etc). Regarding Twain's complaints, the biggest lesson I learned from learning german at an older age was: languages are nons…

The difficulty of mastering the tenses is something that I think a lot of English speakers overlook. There's a lot of really precise and difficult-to-explain subtleties in English. (Of course, English isn't unique in this regard -- but I feel like certain things are taken for granted). Something that catches a lot of English as second language people out is the correct time to use the gerund form (i.e., the '-ing' fo…

Actually, if I'm not wrong your example 2a and 2b is about simple present vs present continuous not gerund. Isn't gerund something like "I like swimming" or "I like to swim" (where both works) or while "I enjoy swimming" only works with gerund?

Admittedly both are subtle and somewhat confusing to non-native speakers.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#194

Post by cycomanic »

lmm wrote: post #175
dataflow wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> She would have had to have been being watched. OK, now I feel like I don't know English. Is this proper English? What does it mean? How is it different from "She would have had to have been watched"? Is the meaning clear to people? I'm scratching my head... Did you mean "She would have had to have felt like she's being watched"?

That's perfectly normal English yes. "She would have had to have been watched" means she would have had to have been watched at that moment (e.g. because someone was watching the area where she did whatever it was), whereas "being watched" implies that the watching was ongoing and therefore that someone was continuously watching her at the time.

Maybe this is what you are saying, but doesn't "... have been watched" imply that the being watched is finished, compared to have been being watched" implies a that the watching is (or might be) still ongoing, i.e. the use of simple past vs present perfect continuous(?)

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#195

Post by lmm »

cycomanic wrote: post #194
lmm wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's perfectly normal English yes. "She would have had to have been watched" means she would have had to have been watched at that moment (e.g. because someone was watching the area where she did whatever it was), whereas "being watched" implies that the watching was ongoing and therefore that someone was continuously watching her at the time.

Maybe this is what you are saying, but doesn't "... have been watched" imply that the being watched is finished, compared to have been being watched" implies a that the watching is (or might be) still ongoing, i.e. the use of simple past vs present perfect continuous(?)

No, "have been being watched" is the past progressive. It implies that the being watched was an ongoing thing at that time, not that it's still continuing.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#196

Post by lmm »

dataflow wrote: post #191
lmm wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously the situation is fairly rare, but it sounds like a perfectly natural thing to say when it's true. I don't think it's an artificial example at all (whereas e.g. no-one actually says "buffalo" as a verb).

> it sounds like a perfectly natural thing to say when it's true It doesn't sound natural to me at all; it sounds incredibly awkward to me. In a situation like that, I think people would say something like "someone would've been watching her at that moment".

"someone would've had have been" doesn't sound remotely natural. "someone must've been watching her" would be legitimate, but doesn't have the same connotations; it humanises the watcher, whereas "she must've had been being watched" suggests it could have been an organization rather than an individual, and so feels more sinister.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#197

Post by dataflow »

lmm wrote: post #196
dataflow wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it sounds like a perfectly natural thing to say when it's true It doesn't sound natural to me at all; it sounds incredibly awkward to me. In a situation like that, I think people would say something like "someone would've been watching her at that moment".

"someone would've had have been" doesn't sound remotely natural. "someone must've been watching her" would be legitimate, but doesn't have the same connotations; it humanises the watcher, whereas "she must've had been being watched" suggests it could have been an organization rather than an individual, and so feels more sinister.

If you're talking about being watched at a particular moment, you're not talking about "an organization" watching; you're talking about a person. And whether it's sinister or not is pretty beside the point. I'm saying that phrasing is pretty darn unnatural English, sinister or not.

(And I meant to write "would've"; the "would've had have been" was just a typo...)

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#198

Post by lmm »

dataflow wrote: post #197
lmm wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"someone would've had have been" doesn't sound remotely natural. "someone must've been watching her" would be legitimate, but doesn't have the same connotations; it humanises the watcher, whereas "she must've had been being watched" suggests it could have been an organization rather than an individual, and so feels more sinister.

If you're talking about being watched at a particular moment , you're not talking about "an organization" watching; you're talking about a person. And whether it's sinister or not is pretty beside the point. I'm saying that phrasing is pretty darn unnatural English, sinister or not. (And I meant to write "would've"; the "would've had have been" was just a typo...)

> If you're talking about being watched at a particular moment

But you're not; you're talking about having been being watched, something that was an ongoing process at the time (past progressive).

> And whether it's sinister or not is pretty beside the point.

People choose their phrasing because they want to convey particular connotations. So you can't just say "this is a simpler way to say the same thing" if it carries different connotations.

> I'm saying that phrasing is pretty darn unnatural English, sinister or not.

All I can say is it sounds perfectly natural to me, as a native (British/Irish) English speaker.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#199

Post by dataflow »

lmm wrote: post #198
dataflow wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're talking about being watched at a particular moment , you're not talking about "an organization" watching; you're talking about a person. And whether it's sinister or not is pretty beside the point. I'm saying that phrasing is pretty darn unnatural English, sinister or not. (And I meant to write "would've"; the "would've had have been" was just a typo...)

> If you're talking about being watched at a particular moment But you're not; you're talking about having been being watched, something that was an ongoing process at the time (past progressive). > And whether it's sinister or not is pretty beside the point. People choose their phrasing because they want to convey particular connotations. So you can't just say "this is a simpler way to say the same thing" if it carr…

You're not going to get across the notion of an organization doing the "watching" sinisterly without additional context, at which point you don't need this awkward wording in the first place. Mind you, you yourself described the meaning as "someone was continuously watching her at the time". That's the natural interpretation of this sentence. I can't speak for BrE I guess, but in AmE the wording is quite jarring, and people would not opt for this wording when they could add "someone" or some other subject and make it sound so much more natural than awkwardly forcing it into passive voice. ("Someone would've been watching her", "someone would've had to have been watching her", "they would've been watching her", "they would've had to kept her under watch/surveillance", etc... the list goes on...)

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#200

Post by lmm »

dataflow wrote: post #199
lmm wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're talking about being watched at a particular moment But you're not; you're talking about having been being watched, something that was an ongoing process at the time (past progressive). > And whether it's sinister or not is pretty beside the point. People choose their phrasing because they want to convey particular connotations. So you can't just say "this is a simpler way to say the same thing" if it carr…

You're not going to get across the notion of an organization doing the "watching" sinisterly without additional context, at which point you don't need this awkward wording in the first place. Mind you, you yourself described the meaning as "someone was continuously watching her at the time". That's the natural interpretation of this sentence. I can't speak for BrE I guess, but in AmE the wording is quite jarring, and…

> You're not going to get across the notion of an organization doing the "watching" sinisterly without additional context

Of course you do. Consider "Do you ever feel like you're being watched?" versus "Do you ever feel like someone's watching you?" Both those sentences are natural English and in a certain sense they "mean the same"; nonetheless they convey a quite different feeling, and neither is a replacement for the other.

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