Noncompositional

The other day the following two sentences were brought up at a Framenet meeting:

• He used an electric mixer to make the cookies.
• He used an electric mixer to make the cookies with.

That last with really shouldn’t be there, I suppose, but it absolutely makes sense why [hmm...was that a legal sluice?]. Searching for this sort of sentence on Google isn’t exactly trivial (especially since their * wildcard does weird things, like allowing extra words in parts of the search string where the * isn’t located). But you can search for questions, and get things like this:

• What did you use to color it with? Just pens? If so, what type of pens?

(yes, there are many “usta” matches to most searches; but many are legit)

Freaky, man. But this is another case where preposition stranding is basically the only option. The same goes for where at and (an idiomatic sense of) what for.

• Where did you audition at?
• ?? At where did you audition?
• What did you do that for?
• ?? For what did you do that?

But more freaky: you get sentences like With what move did Shawn Michaels use to win the match?. Buh.

While researching some historic uses of SAI in English, I came upon an interesting passage from A Sixth Booke to the Coutesse of Pembrokes Arcadia from 1624.

Shamefac’t Cherrie, blush no more, Nor esteeme your beauties store To be lessened, cause you see Her lips excell much worth may bee In your Vermillion, though no eye Can discerne a paritie.

And I thought: huh? Surely that couldn’t be an abbreviated version of because…or could it? And so I, as now (temporarily) anyone can do, looked up “cause” in the OED. I found this:

1. (with of) = BECAUSE of, on account of. 1513 BRADSHAW St. Werburge (1848) 184 Churches..were gyuen To god and saynt Werburge cause of deuocion.

A use without the “of” comes in 1556. Of course, the OED notes that this usage is “now only dial., or vulgar.” So pepper your formal documents with cause. Just be prepared to back it up with a little historical precedent.

(And no, there’s no SAI in the passage above. It continues, “You worthy were to set at odds, / As did the Apple, all the Godds:”)

Yet another installment in the series where I observe grammar letting people talk about what they’re talking about.

Last week (or so) on a show on the Food Network about how people make it in the food industry/service world, a coffeeshop owner was being interviewed on how he got his business started. He said, paraphrasing,

I didn’t originally want a coffee shop. What I really wanted was to have a place that sold really nice, gourmet sandwiches and salads that by the way had great coffee.

I can’t recall exactly the prosody on the by the way, but it didn’t have so-called “comma intonation” - that is, it wasn’t marked off from the rest of the sentence with a pause and a compression of frequency. There might have been some prosodic setting-off, including some extra umph on the “way.” In any case, even though the guy is not quoting any particular person, directly or indirectly, he inserts a discourse marker like “by the way” to evoke the idea that this was how people would be talking about his store. Or, perhaps he’s done yet another leap and quasi-un-grammaticalized the marker “by the way” to mean ‘as a minor/side point.’ (I don’t know what to call the change of discourse marker > semantic-ful adverbial)

Next, consider again.

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Last Friday, comedian Al Lubel did a routine on Letterman. The last bit of his segment made some interesting linguistic observations, especially regarding street/warning signs. Of course, instructional and directive language in English is subject to some grammatical principles that are absent in the rest of the language, including allowing null instantiation of stuff that is usually required. Taking some examples from the closest cookbook at hand, Healthy Asian Vegetarian Dishes (gaps shown with –):

Halve the squash lengthwise. Slice — into 1/2-in (1-cm) slices. Combine all the sauce ingredients, stirring — to break up the beancurd, then set — aside. Pour in the water … . Transfer — to serving dish and garnish — with toasted sesame seeds, if desired.

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