Ultan's grammar quip

Jason H · 13 May 2011, 20:23 · from 2011-May.txt.gz

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From: beet31425 at gmail.com (Jason H)
Date: Fri, 13 May 2011 13:23:10 -0700
Subject: (urth) Ultan's grammar quip
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James,

Good ear, and I think I now agree with you as to what Sev meant. But I
wouldn't say "the placement of 'mostly' is ambiguous".  If we want to be
really strict, there are right and wrong placements, depending on the
meaning of the sentence.

Here are three possible meanings:

1. Most of the people Palaemon teaches are apprentices.
2. Most of what Palaemon does is teach.
3. Most of the teaching is done by Palaemon.

I still think that to a strict grammarian like Ultan, Sev's statement is
only correct if he means (1). (Which he doesn't, hence the error.)

If Sev had meant (2) (as I originally thought), he should have said "Master
Palaemon mostly teaches us apprentices."

If Sev had meant (3) (which, I agree with James, is what he really does
mean), he should have said something like "Mostly Master Palaemon teaches us
apprentices." (Although I guess "Master Palaelmon mostly teaches..." works
here too.)

Is this splitting hairs in the most absurd way? Of course! I'm just a mortal
trying to get the Master Librarian's little joke.


-Jason

On Fri, May 13, 2011 at 12:11 PM, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote:

>  On 5/13/2011 1:33 PM, Jason H wrote:
>
> I agree that Severian's grammatical error occurs in " Master Palaemon
> teaches us apprentices, mostly", but I have a different take. There's
> nothing inherently wrong with the "us apprentices", grammatically or
> stylistically. People often misuse "us" vs. "we" in this setting (as James
> says), so our suspicions here are raised, but Severian's use is correct. So
> why does Ultan imply that he didn't learn grammar?
> I think that the problem is the placement of "mostly" (although for a
> different reason from what David says). It needs to be adjacent to the word
> it modifies. The correct statement is "Master Palaemon mostly teaches us
> apprentices." That is, the main thing that Palaemon does is teach: he
> "mostly teaches". In contrast, "teaches us apprentices, mostly" really means
> that he teaches different kinds of people, and most of them are apprentices
> (but e.g. there might be some journeymen that he also teaches). I don't
> think this is what Severian means.
>
>
> I don't think that is what Sev is saying. He is saying "Although Gurloes
> sent me, my training is PRIMARILY received by Palaemon...but not entirely. I
> consider myself Palaemon's apprentice, if I had to choose one." It is true
> that "mostly" is ambiguous here. So it the use of "us apprentices". The
> placement of "mostly" is ambiguous and so is it's usage in the first place.
>
>
> J.
>
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