Hello, again. I answered this about an hour ago, but it seems to have disappeared.
On Mar 4, 7:08 am, "Petr Hrubis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > 2007/3/4, splay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > > That's problematical. We're talking about tone and connotation, which > > are unavoidably idiosyncratic. I gave the matter brief thought when I > > encountered the locution in your piece and concluded at the time that > > it was a satisfactory way of avoiding scare quotes. The thing is, "so- > > called" is snide in certain contexts and absolutely neutral in others. > > I think it defaults to neutral. > > > Upon re-reading note 1, I see what you mean. I'm afraid I have to ask > > you what is meant by "so-called" in each of the three instances. I > > took it to mean that the names are not as yet widely recognized or > > accepted. > > Yes, that's exactly what I was afraid of when I asked the question. > The sentence has been written by the other author, whose native > language is either German or some a Slavic language from the southern > branch (Slovenian, Serbian or Croatian) - I'm not sure at the moment. > I want the sentence to look and sound as neutral as possible. The > terms "Vasconic" and "Macro-Caucasian" are nothing but conventions, > and it's only a matter of expertize and the on-going debate as to > whether the groups are really genetic (Bengtson's view), typological > or merely geographical. There should be as little connotation as > possible - no irony at all. I would simply like to inform the readers > that Iberian, Aquitanian and Basque are grouped together under the > heading "Vasconic" by some scholars, and that the Basque language, the > Burushaski language and the North Caucasian languages are grouped > together in a Macro-Caucasian language family by Bengtson and others. > Whether those hypotheses are right or not is irrelevant here, as the > article is intended neither as a propaganda nor as a scientific paper. > We're planning to include both the pros and cons, of course, but only > as briefly as possible. The sentence in question is, "John D. Bengtson proposes a so-called Vasco-Caucasian family, comprising the Vasconic and North Caucasian languages, and a so-called Macro-Caucasian family, adding Burushaski to the former two." Losing "so-called" and two commas, and tweaking, we get, "John D. Bengtson proposes a Vasco-Caucasian family comprising the Vasconic and North Caucasian languages, and a Macro-Caucasian family comprising the Vasco-Caucasian family and Burushaski." This way, "proposes" reaches past the name to the idea, and the question of the theoretical status of the names is left aside. And I never liked "former" in the original. "Former" is risky. You always want it to point squarely at something previous. Better to repeat. Please let me know what you think about this, and also let me know when you'd like me to look at the Wikipedia page again. By the way, I'm half Slovenian and my wife is one-quarter Czech, so you've come to the right place. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Correct my English" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/correct-my-english -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
