Always or Ever?

Another request from a comment on a previous post--which demonstrates that I'm more easily prompted into making more posts when people ask questions than when left to my own easily distracted devices^note. The question is:

I would like to know what is the difference in use between "ever" and "always", for example, in sentences like these:

• "This is the experience I have ever wanted"
• "This is the experience I have ever dreamt".

In short, the distinction is:
* always: at all times.
* ever: at any time.

Consider the difference between these:

• Have you ever eaten ketchup on vanilla ice cream? [Have you, at any time in your life, eaten ketchup on vanilla ice cream?]
• Have you always eaten ketchup on vanilla ice cream? [I notice that, each time you have vanilla ice cream, you put ketchup on it; have you done so at all times in the past?]

Therefore, when you have wanted something at all times in your life so far, it is "the experience that I have always wanted" or "the experience I have always dreamed of [dreamt of]."

OK, now you actually have the experience, and it is better than expected. Here, the difference between ever and always is still useful, but more subtle:

• If, every time you imagined the experience, you imagined it in basically the same way (at all times, you imagined it the same way), you might say that it is "better than I always imagined."
• However, if you imagined it in several slightly different ways, and it is better than any of those ways, you might say that it is "better than I ever imagined" (better than, at any time, I imagined it).
• Or even--if you could never in your wildest dreams have imagined how good it would be--"better than I ever could have imagined".

So here's wishing all of you the experiences that you have always wanted and hoping that they are better than you ever imagined. And, if you ever put ketchup on your vanilla ice cream, write and let me know whether it is worse than I ever could have imagined.

^noteMaybe someday I'll look into the origins of the idiomatic phrase "left to my own devices"--if it ever occurs to me again to do so, because I almost always forget these things the next day.

Which or That?

The which-or-that battle is another of angst-ridden debates over which purists will commit hara-kiri--or murder.

One argument is that "which" or "that" doesn't matter, as they have become interchangeable in very common usage, and since language evolves, well, that's that. (But not which's which. Ha.)

I prefer the rule (possibly more of a guideline) that says that "which" precedes an incidental comment about the subject (that is, it's not important to understanding the sense of the sentence), while "that" precedes something that is crucial to understanding the sense of the sentence.

For example, someone compliments you on your hat. You can respond: "This hat, which I love dearly, came from Afghanistan." The meaning of the sentence "This hat came from Afghanistan" is changed in no way at all by the "which" clause. It doesn't restrict the subject--"this hat"--because there is only one hat on your head and you can say anything you want about it but there's still just one hat on your head.

Compare to someone complimenting you on your collection of hats, none of which you are wearing at the moment. You can respond, "The hat that came from Afghanistan is my favorite." The sentence "The hat is my favorite" does NOT make sense without the "that" clause, because no one will know which hat you are discussing. It restricts the discussion to a specific hat out of many.

If you want the official terms, you use "that" for a restrictive clause--it restricts the discussion to the specific thing described (from the pile of hats, we're restricting the discussion to the one from Afghanistan), and you use "which" for a nonrestrictive clause--it doesn't restrict the original subject of the sentence in any way (the hat on my head is my favorite; the fact that it is your favorite doesn't narrow it down or restrict the discussion in any way.)

"Which" and "that" are complicated because they are used in a variety of ways that depend on context. (Hmm, you say, why did she use "that depend..." in this sentence rather than ", which depend..."? Yes, it gets subtle. My primary point is that the usage depends on context; I don't want someone to discard that clause as irrelevant. If I wanted merely to emphasize that they are used in a variety of ways and merely point out in passing that context matters, I could have said, "...in a variety of ways, which depend on context.") Yes. Here, the difference is indeed subtle; you have to decide what it is that you're really trying to say and see whether removing the clause changes the essential meaning.

Compare:
Which house did Jack build? -- "This is the house that Jack built."

Is this the house where we're meeting? "Yes, this is the house, which Jack built." (The fact that Jack built the house has nothing to do with where the meeting will take place; it's just an interesting side note.)

The original question was posted as a comment to this post:

(1) This is a unique post THAT is an unusually useful one?
or
(2) This is a unique post, WHICH is an unusually useful one?

First, note the use of the comma with "which" as a nonrestrictive clause.

Next, to know which is correct, you have to figure out the writer's primary meaning. In fact, in this case, it's hard to tell. If you removed "an unusually useful one" from the sentence, leaving "This is a unique post," is the main meaning still intact?

I'd interpret the writer's underlying possible meanings as:

(1) This post is both unique and unusually useful. [Perhaps compared to other unique posts, many of which might not be useful, or useful but not unusually so.]
(2) This post is unique. By the way, it's also useful. [I admire the fact that it's unique. But I ought to mention in passing that I also found it useful.]

Conforming versus Conformant: Which Conforms?

OK, what is it with "conformant" for products that conform to a standard? What's wrong with "conforming"? If something conforms, it is conforming (if something deforms, it is deforming (the deforming pressures...not deformant pressures).

I've had to use that foul nonword in various documents and web pages because the organization for whom I'm producing these things has ignored my argument that, since conformant wasn't in any actual dictionary, it didn't count as an actual word. At about that time, interestingly, it showed up in Wiktionary). Apparently the argument is that, because it appears in a zillion pages on the web, it is now a real word. Dagnabbit, it's just a lazy back-formation from "conformance". Nerds.

Jules Verne and the Internet

I just read the intriguing short story "In the Year 2889," written by Jules Verne in 1891. It follows a day in the life of a news mogul 1000 years in Verne's future, and it sounds for all the world to me as if he's describing the World Wide Web...a hundred years before Al Gore invented it!

This is a lovely example of how a creative writer can take an infant technology or two (the phonograph had become publicly available really only in the previous year or so, the telephone had become available in only a few localities in the previous decade) and extrapolate some fantastically prescient uses.

Enjoy these excerpts or read the whole thing courtesy of Project Gutenberg):

Every one is familiar with Fritz Napoleon Smith's system--a system made
possible by the enormous development of telephony during the last
hundred years. Instead of being printed, the Earth Chronicle is every
morning spoken to subscribers, who, in interesting conversations with
reporters, statesmen, and scientists, learn the news of the day.
Furthermore, each subscriber owns a phonograph, and to this instrument
he leaves the task of gathering the news whenever he happens not to be
in a mood to listen directly himself. As for purchasers of single
copies, they can at a very trifling cost learn all that is in the paper
of the day at any of the innumerable phonographs set up nearly
everywhere.

....

The first thing that Mr. Smith does is to
connect his phonotelephote, the wires of which communicate with his
Paris mansion. The telephote! Here is another of the great triumphs of
science in our time. The transmission of speech is an old story; the
transmission of images by means of sensitive mirrors connected by wires
is a thing but of yesterday. A valuable invention indeed, and Mr. Smith
this morning was not niggard of blessings for the inventor, when by its
aid he was able distinctly to see his wife notwithstanding the distance
that separated him from her.
.....

In one corner is a telephone, through which
a hundred Earth Chronicle _littérateurs_ in turn recount to the public
in daily installments a hundred novels.
......

Mr. Smith continues his round and enters the reporters' hall. Here 1500
reporters, in their respective places, facing an equal number of
telephones, are communicating to the subscribers the news of the world
as gathered during the night. The organization of this matchless service
has often been described. Besides his telephone, each reporter, as the
reader is aware, has in front of him a set of commutators, which enable
him to communicate with any desired telephotic line. Thus the
subscribers not only hear the news but see the occurrences. When an
incident is described that is already past, photographs of its main
features are transmitted with the narrative. And there is no confusion
withal. The reporters' items, just like the different stories and all
the other component parts of the journal, are classified automatically
according to an ingenious system, and reach the hearer in due
succession. Furthermore, the hearers are free to listen only to what
specially concerns them. They may at pleasure give attention to one
editor and refuse it to another.

More Misheard English and Folk Songs

Here's another tricky phrase: "Dog eat dog," usually used in "It's a dog-eat-dog world," meaning that the competition is fierce and only the strongest and fittest survive. Thanks to Lucy and Walter, we've realized that the pronunciation sounds almost exactly like "doggy dog." "It's a doggy dog world" doesn't convey any meaning at all, really, but we can understand how someone might hear it that way.

Which reminds me of a folk tune, Sarah the Whale. (For another intriguing exploration of language, left as an exercise for the reader, do a web search for "Sara whale teeth miles" (some of the more-common words) and see how many variants there are.) One of the stanzas as I learned it is:

When she smiles, she just shows teeth for miles and miles,
and tonsils, and spare ribs, and things too fierce to mention.

I was surprised about 4 years ago, when perusing some of the lyric variants, to discover that one site spelled it out as "and things to fierce dimension," I suppose along the lines of "to [a] great degree". Once again, "to mention" and "dimension" can sound amazingly alike, especially when sung.

There are plenty of sites (and books) about misheard lyrics, as discussed in my 2005 post, The Lady Mondegreen Sings Christmas Carols.

Misheard English--Intensive Purposes

Have you heard this one? "...for all intensive purposes..."

It's certainly an interesting, and unintentional, twist on the phrase "for all intents and purposes." And, apparently, not an uncommon mistake. For more discussions:

• Wiki.Answers.com


• Answers.com


• Another blogger comments and gives more links

More Bad Translations

I've just added another interesting example of "Engrish" to Why Copy Editors Aren't Useless.