Language desk
< March 25	<< Feb \| March \| Apr >>	March 27 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

March 26

Looking for a word

Lately I watch a lot of sitcoms/comedy series. As a german, there is one word I hear repeatetly, it sounds like: groace/grosse ... in the context of "sick/nasty/abnormal". I tried so many different spelling attempts, but can't find the exact word on google or dict.leo. Does someone have any idea which word I mean? Thanks! --134.3.11.14 (talk) 11:35, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Gross. - Lindert (talk) 11:40, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks man. I guess I haven't found it, because gross/groß is also german for "big/tall"! --134.3.11.14 (talk) 11:44, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you have. In English (originally American English but it's spread to British English) "gross" is used as a slang term meaning something like, "disgusting". Of course, it has other older meanings, including "excessive" and "144".{The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 15:22, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

OP means s/he hadn't found it before the answer above, but now has. -- Elphion (talk) 15:39, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The thing is that "gross" comes from two different sources, hundreds of years ago.[1] One meant "large", the other meant "coarse".[2] Similarly used and unrelated is "grody" or "groty", from "grotesque".[3] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:40, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well it was just one source for the adjective (Old French gros, grosse, meaning big, thick, coarse) but the word developed different shades of meaning in English, with the recent sense of "disgusting" being only a slight modification of the usage by Milton, Dryden & Burke to mean "brutally lacking in refinement or decency" (OED). Dbfirs 22:18, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

me or I

Which is correct: me and Mary were returning from... or I and Mary were returning from...? Thanks--93.174.25.12 (talk) 14:47, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The correct form is "Mary and I were returning". The first person pronoun should come last according to prescriptive rules. If you are asking which form do speakers actually use (descriptive rules), then "Me and Mary were returning" is in widespread use, but it is a bit of a marker for a less educated speaker. "Mary and I were returning" is probably used at least as often as "Me and Mary..." in the United States, and almost exclusively among high-status speakers. Marco polo (talk) 15:05, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Professor Joseph Emonds showed in 1986 that, although the rule Marco Polo refers to has been taught for generations, it is not, and cannot be, part of any naturally-learned English. This is one of the reasons for the prevalence of hypercorrection, cases where the rule requires "Mary and me" but people "say Mary and I". --ColinFine (talk) 15:46, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I never claimed that "Mary and I" was naturally-learned English. I was just answering the question about which form is "correct". An overwhelming majority of English speakers with a university education consider "Mary and I" correct and the alternative constructions incorrect. I don't doubt that "Mary and me" or "Me and Mary" are more "natural", but if the questioner wants to be perceived as "correct" by people with a university education, then he or she has to use "Mary and I". Marco polo (talk) 17:21, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but only when used as the subject. Colin's point, I think, is that there are times when it appears as the object, where it has to be "Mary and me", prescriptively (These rules apply equally to Mary and me). It's weird that people will say "Me and him done it" but in the next breath say "Between you and I, it's not worth what they're charging". It's either utter disregard for the rules, or trying too hard to follow them - where's the happy medium? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 17:29, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but in the questioner's case, the pronoun is clearly the subject of the phrase. I don't see why we need to confuse the questioner by answering questions that he or she did not ask. Does anyone want to dispute that "Mary and I were returning" is the form that educated speakers would consider correct? Marco polo (talk) 00:24, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but that's the whole point. Kids get "Mary and I" drummed into them so successfully, that they think it's wrong to ever say "Mary and me" in any circumstances whatsoever, and so they hypercorrect. It's good to know that, while "Mary and I" is indeed the answer to the OP's question, there are cases where that would be dead wrong. There's always value in taking a bigger picture approach to these things, as long as one doesn't lose sight of the details, and I don't think we got anywhere near that point here today. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 06:39, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

... and that hypercorrection has become so common that it is heard from educated speakers of a variety of ages, even on the BBC. It must have a claim as one of the most common grammatical errors in spoken English (replacing the earlier "me and Mary" at the start of a sentence which was very common here in the 1950s). Dbfirs 07:23, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Personally I don't have a problem with people using "Mary and me" as a subject, it is very common in the UK. However the hyper-correction ("Mary and I" as an object) really grates - it makes me think that the speaker is trying to be posh. -- Q Chris (talk) 10:32, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Funny, but I'm the opposite. I mean, I don't think either is correct, but "Mary and me" as a subject sounds more substandard to me than "Mary and I" as an object. 86.179.6.219 (talk) 18:30, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

They're both wretched. "They gave Mary and I the award" or "They gave I the award." No. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:47, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't like it, but "between you and I" seems to be gaining ground, as a result of proscriptions against "Me and Mary" as a verb subject (some people apparently just decide to use "I" in all conjoined phrases). AnonMoos (talk) 22:50, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The simple rule, which we were taught, is for that example, take the "Mary and" or "and Mary" out of the sentence and see how it sounds. You wouldn't use "me" as the subject unless you're Tonto or Tarzan or some such. And using "I" as the object sounds effected, like a joke, as Q Chris notes above. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:43, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

93.174..., if you are trying to learn what is considered "correct" English, I apologize for the confusing discussion above. What people are trying to say is that the widely accepted "correct" form for your statement is "Mary and I were returning", since I is part of the subject of the sentence and I, not me, is a subject (nominative) pronoun. Even though that is considered by most educated people to be the "correct" form, you will find many (mostly less educated) native speakers of English using "me and Mary" or "Mary and me" in the subject of the sentence. However, if you wanted to refer to Mary and yourself as an object in a sentence, the correct form would be "Mary and me". For example, "The girl returned home with Mary and me". Some of the people commenting are regretting that because of the rule that "Mary and I" is the correct subject form, even some educated speakers incorrectly will say *"The girl returned home with Mary and I". You want to make sure that you use the correct form depending on whether the pronoun is part of the subject or an object in the sentence. Marco polo (talk) 13:31, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I would also clarify that there is a small minority of educated English speakers, mostly linguists, who do not think that "unnatural" rules of correctness should be imposed on a language, and some of these people have commented above. However, this is a very small minority, and if you want to appear to be correct when communicating with English speakers who are not linguists, you should ignore the linguists. Marco polo (talk) 13:36, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And to make myself completely clear, I side with linguists who think that, in an ideal world, there should be no unnatural rules imposed on a language. However, we don't live in an ideal world, and we do English-language learners a disservice when we confuse them about the applicability of those unnatural rules, since breaking those rules can have real consequences, such as hurting a person's employment prospects. Marco polo (talk) 13:43, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]