The Grammar Genie says hello!

[marcuspnw]

On medical professionals using temperature when they mean fever:

I might have mentioned this one before on another thread:

During the bird flu frenzy, I went to the local school to get my shot. The attending nurse asked me if I had a temperature and I replied that I hoped so but I didn't have a fever. Funny, but nobody else in my family complained about any pain from being injected! The nurse did say that I was the first to catch her when I showed up in the early evening. Small consolation but I guess she could have made me drop my pants...

I have also made calls into the doctor's to schedule appointments for one of my children and have been asked more that once "Does your child have a temperature?!!!" instead of "What is his temperature or does she have a fever?"

[OzAnt]

LOL! What a great story! You're so clever, Ant. You should write books that make people think and laugh....

Thanks Jim, although I'm certain you're giving me way more credit than I deserve.

I think it's a European thing, for example, not to use qualifiers with words like hospital. In the USA, except where people have been somehow corrupted by European influences, we usually say, "I was in THE hospital." It grates on my ears to hear people say, "I was in hospital." Maybe it's just my Michigan upbringing, though I travelled all over the world with people from all over the USA, and NONE of them ever said, "Take him to hospital."

On the other hand, we don't use those qualifiers with "school" or "church". We say, "Take him to school," or, "Let's go to church."

Strange, huh?

Yes and no...

See, to me, if somebody says, "Take him to school" the implication is that the person you've been asked/told to take is unmistakeably a student.
"Take him to the school" to me, is virtually stating that the person isn't a student. It almost implies an incomplete sentence, "Take him to the school so he can vote" or a withholding of information, "Take him to the school. He needs to 'acquire' a new monitor."

With churches, also an institution, if somebody says, "I have to go to church today", the implication is that they'll be attending its services. If on the other hand somebody says, "I have to go to the church today", they're making it clear that they are going there for expressly different reasons. For example:
"I have to go to the church today. It's my turn to clean", implies they are cleaning the church. Essentially, it's implying the 'over' (ie: "I have to go over to the church today. It's my turn to clean").
"I have to go to church today. It's my turn to clean" may be implying that they feel the need to attend a ritual today because it's somehow linked to their duty to have to perform cleaning services somewhere.

In a nutshell, then:
"He had to go to school" tells me that person was participating in the use of its core service; teaching.
"He had to go to church today" tells me that person was participating in the use of its core service; worshipping.

...and it could be that people, like myself, have inadvertently extended this to hospitals -- another institution:
"He had to go to hospital" tells me that person was participating in the use of its core services; healing & fixing. In other words, if somebody said this to me, I would assume that the person of interest was in hospital because he was seriously ill and required hospitalisation or because he required an operation.
"He had to go to the hospital" tells me only that a person had to go to that location. He might have, for instance, been going there to pick up his wife, "He had to go to the hospital and pick up his wife. She was discharged today." or perhaps even just for (short term?) follow up services, "He had to go to the hospital. It was time to have his cast removed." However, because of people like yourself, Jim, I can't be sure. They may well have meant they'd been admitted because they'd been seriously ill or because they required an operation.

So, in my usage it appears to do with whether one was partaking in an institution's core services or whether one was simply on its property. Maybe.

I should point out that this was a glimpse into my subconscious, or perhaps more correctly, my conscious mind feebly trying to make sense of my subconscious. Essentially, it's the improbable making sense of the impossible. I should probably apologise even more fervently for the mess -- nay, disaster encountered, than I did earlier.

Ant

[OzAnt]

I'm so impressed with your language background and how extremely well you've managed it!

Thanks, but I should point out that research shows that young minds absorb languages very readily, so, to be fair, it's not that big an achievement. I would actually recommend anybody wishing to teach their children other languages to do so earlier, than later in life. That said, I would have thought it prudent to sit me down in down in front of Play School for a few months before starting school (it's an educational Australian TV show for young kids).

Spelling, though, was always easy for me.

I bet then that you refuse to let a spell check correct any mistyped words. It's kind of amusing for me because I'd like to not turn spell check on but at the same time I know that eventually I'd miss a word I'd mistyped. Still, I always manually correct the words that get squiggle-underlined -- suggestions be damned!

I was a Detroit Metropolitan Spelling Bee Grade Champion in 1958, and I still have the embossed dictionary I won for that. It's the first Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary! It doesn't have a LOT of the words we use now in it!

Gratz, mate... and cool... a collector's piece!

Ant

[OzAnt]

I sometimes ask people what their name was. This is when they already told me and I didn't catch it and I don't want to say what is your name as they could then think or say, 'I just told you.'

Moon, thanks for that. What you said, coupled with a bit of research (I was surprised to hear other people hadn't struck it) and it finally dawned on me...

"What was your name?" is essentially short for "What was your name, again?" It appears that people drop the 'again' when they're uncertain of whether they should already know the customer's name. So, because people manning phones in particularly, quite often get hit with a barrage of information nowadays, eg; "Hi, I'm Candy and I'm ringing because my phone bill can't be right because most of my calls are incoming and the only reason I can think of how this has happened is because you haven't changed my phone plan like I asked last month so if you could refund my last phone bill and make sure I'm on the plan I should be on that would be great." Or something like that. The point is that the poor soul on the receiving end of these types of calls do well to retain their sanity, let alone the customer's name. So, "what was your name?" appears to have been born out of a need to hedge their bets (did they, or did they not give me their name already), and eventually, out of repetition.

I had one the other day where I needed to pass on a message and I said do you have a number the person can contact you on. And the other person said yes. There was a long pause then they said, 'Do you want me to give it you?' Probably some relative of yours Ant!

ROFL! Damn... I have been guilty of this . Incidentally, this inadvertently puts to bed the whole nature/nurture debate!

Ant

[OzAnt]

Funny, but nobody else in my family complained about any pain from being injected!

LOL!

"Does your child have a temperature?!!!"

This reminds me of a story that rattled a teacher...
A little girl had come up to her teacher and said, "I don't feel well. My temperature hurts."
The teacher, concerned for her pupil but understandably puzzled, asked the girl, "Your what hurts?"
The little girl repeated, "My temperature!" The teacher looked at her, still puzzled and now with growing anxiety because the little girl had become more animated, seemingly slapping her forehead.
"Honey, we don't have a temperature. Could you point to where it hurts?" asked the teacher.
"I am!" came the irritable reply. It took the teacher a few further moments to realise that what she was interpreting as childish, irrational behaviour from an unhappy child was in fact a frustrated little girl indicating that it was her forehead that hurt. It turns out that years of hearing the phrase, "Let me feel your temperature", followed by a hand being placed on her forehead, had caused a mis-association.

Not sure if it would be prudent to relay this story to somebody about to use you as a pin cushion though...

Ant

[Tim-the-Hermit]

That or which? I just noticed another thing I didn't see before. Eg:

'Any law that forbids fishing on Fridays is silly.'

'Any law which forbids fishing on Fridays is silly.'

I'm not sure what is the difference? These things make me wonder how many mistakes I've made without realising!

[Keep The Reason]

In modern speech, which refers only to things. Who (or its forms whom and whose) refers only to people. That normally refers to things but it may refer to a class or type of person.

Examples: That is a book which I need for the class.

These are the books that I need for the class.

He is the man who will be teaching the class.

They are the type of people who would lie to their mothers.

They are the type of people that would lie to their mothers.
(That is OK here because it is a class or type.)

Link

[Tim-the-Hermit]

Thanks KTR!