OddThinking

“everyone else who doesn’t have the universe revolving around them”
Sorry, but after yet another of our talks/arguments about linguistic prescriptivism last night I couldn’t resist.

I actually wrote it that way to begin with, and then changed it. I also pondered having the question underneath which it should be, but dropped it to keep it simple.

I wanted the pronoun “everyone else” to refer to everyone else, not just a subset of other people.

“Everyone else who doesn’t blah” implied to me that there might be some other people who do blah, so I tried “Everyone else who don’t blah,” to (“wrongly”?) make it more universal.

Maybe I should have used a comma – “Everyone else, who don’t blah,”?

… Or just totally reworded it to avoid the problem!

Don’t give up your day job. 🙂

You probably meant for this to be a verification of your sense of humo(u)r, rather than your grammar skills. Honestly, I found the bit funny, but not uproariously so. (The window-counting anecdote was much funnier to me, as was Cassie’s response.)

It so happens, though, that I cannot resist chiming in on the language issue. When I first read your post, “don’t” seemed awkward; “doesn’t” reads and sounds more natural to me. However, I say awkward rather than incorrect because a case could be made (at least under American rules, which I realize do not necessarily apply to Australian) that the subject of that verb is plural, and thus should get the plural form of the verb, even if it doesn’t consist of the entire remaining population.

However, I also agree with your reasoning, as well as the notion that a comma would have helped, and that best of all probably would have been to reword the whole thing to avoid controversial grammar. (But if you’d done that, you might not yet have any comments on this post! 😉 )

Quick update: Alastair snuck in his comment between the time I wrote mine and the time I submitted it. (I find I have to do a lot of rereading of my posts, especially if I am going to make some kind of grammar-related contention!)

Strangely, it went from amusing to funny when I imagined viewing it on YouTube.

Is the Copernican epiphany due to getting an Aeron with all the options?

It’s good enough for a smirk. :)

Is the Copernican epiphany due to getting an Aeron with all the options?

No; while I need to buy a high-quality desk-chair for my home (now that I am sitting in my study more hours per day), I haven’t done the research yet. I am self-forbidden from any major purchases until I have done a detailed budget. I started that yesterday. Currently, one desk-chair will consume my entire year’s budget for furniture and fittings… and that’s not even an Aeron!

I don’t get it…