Football, Russia, Poland, Hooligans...

[Hax]

Fragony correcting others on the fineties of grammar.

Tis truly not long to kingdom come.

[HoreTore]

Of all the brain-numbing stupidity sourounding this tournament, this isn't one of them. No nation is without hooligans and casuals.

No, there are actual cases of stupidity in euro 2012. I can name a few of them:

- giving it to Poland AND Ukraine was idiotic to begin with. Both nations could've hosted alone. Portugal has far less inhabitants than both countries and hosted alone. Belgium/netherlands was OK, as honestly they should just get over themselves and merge. Switzerland/Austria was stretching it. Poland/Ukraine is nonsense.
- Russian and Polish fans attended the germany-denmark match. No problem. Until they showed their mental deficiences and started singing to each other. A germany-denmark match is about Germany and Denmark. Not Poland and Russia. Idiots.
- No, Ukraine, you don't whistle at Sweden because they retain possession after taking the kick-off. Idiots. You support your own team. Booing at the opposition is appropriate when they act like dorks, not for having the ball.

[Kralizec]

Belgium/netherlands was OK, as honestly they should just get over themselves and merge. Switzerland/Austria was stretching it.

Huh? Both Belgium and the Neth's are more populous than either Switzerland or Austria.

[HoreTore]

Huh? Both Belgium and the Neth's are more populous than either Switzerland or Austria.

I was thinking of land area, not population... I know I wasn't very clear.

Going from a stadium in Ukraine to one in Poland takes a day, in Belgium/Netherlands it was a short train ride.

[ajaxfetish]

Oh Strike do we really have to teach you your own language, 'you are not smart nor funny' is a double negative, 'you are not smart or funny' or 'you are smart nor funny' is the way to go

Methinks you don't quite understand the English double negative, Frags (and I don't blame you). Nor has some idiosyncratic quirks; StfS's usage was just fine, even for Standard English.

Ajax

[HoreTore]

Methinks you don't quite understand the English double negative, Frags (and I don't blame you). Nor has some idiosyncratic quirks; StfS's usage was just fine, even for Standard English.

Ajax

Shouldn't it be "neither" instead of "not", though?

[lars573]

Shouldn't it be "neither" instead of "not", though?

Depends on whether you want to be high class or low class.

[Kralizec]

Fragony correcting others on the fineties of grammar.

Tis truly not long to kingdom come.

Shouldn't it be till kingdom come?

[Hax]

You know what, I don't think so!

[ajaxfetish]

Shouldn't it be "neither" instead of "not", though?

That's certainly the more common way to say it.

A search of the Corpus of Contemporary American yields the following number of occurrences (from a field of ~425 million words):

1394: neither [adjective] nor [adjective]
21: not [adjective] nor [adjective]
30: neither [adjective] or [adjective]
839: not [adjective] or [adjective]
208: [adjective] nor [adjective] (bare form with neither neither nor nor preceding it) <-- OK, I just made my own day with that one

So Fragony's alternatives are both more common than SftS's (which would support StfS's usage feeling unnatural to Frags compared to the others), but neither is as common as the neither ... nor option, which happens to have the same pair of negative elements as StfS's. If not ... nor is wrong because it's a double negative, then neither ... nor would be, too, and this is obviously not the case. Essentially, the restriction on double negatives in Standard English doesn't seem to apply to the word nor. There are plenty of structures where nor occurs freely with other negative elements.

Ajax

edit: as far as my personal intuition goes, SftS's usage doesn't sound odd or ungrammatical at all. It feels slightly more emphatic than the alternatives to me.

[tibilicus]

Holding the tournament in Poland and Ukraine was a a mistake from the off. Both have very big problems with racism, hooliganism and a general dislike for outsiders. The police, whilst trying their best simply aren't up to the challenge. If you were kicked and spat on for simply being a certain nationality, race or even a different football fan the police would be all over the perpetrator like a rash, that is anywhere in Western Europe. The police are either too used to it or harbor such views themselves which can be the only explanation for refusing to act upon such actions. Its quite sad, really, such a poor advert for an otherwise beautiful part of the world. Was actually considering visiting Poland this summer but I think I'll steer clear now.

It's just such a shame that what could have been an expression of Poland and Ukraine's arrival into modern Europe turned out to be the revelation that these two countries are brutal, backward and best avoided.

[HoreTore]

Yeah, what I reacted to most in the video with the indians being beaten up was that nobody intervened. Nobody helped them. No other supporters. No guards. No police. Just despicable.

[Greyblades]

I hate crowd mentalilty sometimes, being compelled to not help someone because the people around you arent, the idea makes me sick.

[Montmorency]

208: [adjective] nor [adjective]

I'm not sure I grasp this one. Can you give an example?

I'd think up "He is strong nor fast" - what does that mean? T is next to R on most keyboards, so might it just be a typo?

[Tellos Athenaios]

It's a (boolean) algebraic expression. As you might say 5 + 3 = 8, you can say Proposition1 NOR Proposition2 = (NOT Proposition1) AND (NOT Proposition2), otherwise known as one of the laws of De Morgan.

[Montmorency]

In conversation?

Son, in life there are winners XOR losers.

[ajaxfetish]

I'm not sure I grasp this one. Can you give an example?

I'd think up "He is strong nor fast" - what does that mean? T is next to R on most keyboards, so might it just be a typo?

Good question. That option struck me as weird as well. It took a different method of searching, since searching for "[adjective] nor [adjective]" returns all the instances with neither or not preceding them as well as any without, so I just subtracted the number of occurrences with each of those, which left 208 still behind. Looking through the results more carefully, it looks like most of these instances also have a neither or not associated with them, just not coming immediately before. For example, "neither well reasoned nor good," "neither totally tame nor wild," "neither inherently good nor bad."

In some cases, the not has been extracted into a higher clause: "... the process which I believe you do not think was bipartisan nor transparent," "I do not believe it wise nor proper to force employees to follow a set of values they do not accept."

There are instances without neither or not (whether immediately before the first adjective or a little further removed), and these cases have instead another negated word preceding them: "There are a lot of nutritionists who say nothing is bad nor good, it's just the amount," "with credit that is no longer cheap nor easy to obtain," "For there is no more reasonable nor powerful assumption ..."

After a little searching through the returns, I'm not finding any instances of nor without another negative first licensing it, and no such instances are coming readily to mind, either. Far from it being ungrammatical for nor to occur with another negative-marked word in English, I think it's obligatory.

Ajax

[Fragony]

Sorry but you are wrong

'See the problem is you are not smart nor funny.'

Not and nor cancel eachother out.

So yes, either 'you are not smart or funny' or 'you are smart nor funny'

[Kadagar_AV]

Am I the only one who have noticed how hot the Ukranian girls at large are though?

Fit bodies, cute faces... and white...

[Fragony]

Am I the only one who have noticed how hot the Ukranian girls at large are though?

Fit bodies, cute faces... and white...

I usually dislike feminists because they never complain about inequality on the garbage-truck but I make an exception for the Femen girls, Ukrainian feminist group who understand that boobs gets them attention



http://www.buzzfeed.com/gavon/the-best-of-femen-nsfw

[Kadagar_AV]

I usually dislike feminists because they never complain about inequality on the garbage-truck but I make an exception for the Femen girls, Ukrainian feminist group who understand that boobs gets them attention



http://www.buzzfeed.com/gavon/the-best-of-femen-nsfw

I wish that branch of feminism would spread to Sweden...

[Fragony]

I wish that branch of feminism would spread to Sweden...

You just might get lucky when ski season opens, but you will get lucky anyway won't you

#15 by the way kthx

[Kadagar_AV]

# 6 and # 23 <- why settle for one?

And what can I say, I am blessed :humble:

[Kadagar_AV]

# 6 and # 23 <- why settle for one?

And what can I say, I am blessed :humble:

[Kadagar_AV]

# 6 and # 23 <- why settle for one?

And what can I say, I am blessed :humble:

[ajaxfetish]

So yes, either 'you are not smart or funny' or 'you are smart nor funny'

Your first suggestion is okay. The second is not an English sentence.

Ajax

[Fragony]

#23 sure has a very good set of personalities. Ok if I can choose more #14 and #15

[Fragony]

Your first suggestion is okay. The second is not an English sentence.

Ajax

Yes it is

[ajaxfetish]

This English-speaker disagrees, and so does the internet. Google can find that sequence in only two places: one is this thread, and in the other it's preceded by a no one that makes it grammatical. Care to offer any support for your position besides 'Thus speaks Fragony'? If not, I've had enough talking to a brick wall for today--Back to your regularly scheduled football and politics!

Ajax

[Kadagar_AV]

Diz da intrawebs be, we dunt speek grammar.