Agree it’s superfluosly verbose- that’s why I thought it was standard legalese.
As for ‘cromulent’
Cromulent first appeared in the February 18, 1996 episode of The Simpsons called “Lisa the Iconoclast,” in what could be considered a throw-away line given during the opening credits. The schoolchildren of Springfield are watching a film about the founding father of Springfield, Jebediah Springfield. The film ends with Jebediah intoning, “A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.” One teacher at the back of the room leans over to another and says that she’d never heard the word embiggen before she moved to Springfield. “I don’t know why,” the other teacher replies. “It’s a perfectly cromulent word.”
The word cromulent ended up in the script courtesy of a showrunner’s challenge to the writers. According to the DVD commentary for The Simpsons , the showrunners asked the writers to come up with two nonce words that sounded like words that could be in actual use. Writer David X. Cohen came up with cromulent as one of those words. It means “acceptable” or “fine.”
The joke was so sly and subtle that as “It’s a perfectly cromulent word” was repeated, it wasn’t necessarily clear to the hearer that it was a joke. In the years following the episode’s debut, cromulent showed up in campus op-eds (“The words were struck down as ‘too hard,’ although both are perfectly cromulent.” Patrick Friel, University Wire, 10 Feb. 1999), reviews of movies (“This film enraged sci-fi geeks because it has almost nothing to do with the Asimov book it stole its title from. But this I, Robot is a perfectly cromulent bastardization…” John Scalzi, PlayStation Magazine, 1 Jan. 2005), and even in the name of a theater company. Cromulent has crept so deep into the language that it has even shown up as a hypothetical example in a Supreme Court amicus brief.
While we don’t yet enter cromulent into our dictionaries, it’s a perfectly cromulent candidate for future entry.
Words We’re Watching talks about words we are increasingly seeing in use but that have not yet met our criteria for entry.
Didn’t think we were on about legalese.
I thought we were on about Tchinglish, (I can invent words not-only-but-also) though I suppose there are similarities.
I assumed it came from extremely formal English (mostly used today in legal jargon), and was adopted to Taiwan by those who thought it was “proper” English.
I was at a school years ago that used an old textbook that insisted that proper usage demanded that subect pronouns be used after the ‘to be’ verb:
“It is I”
instead of “It’s me”, and presumably
“Is that a picture of your family?”
“Yes, it is we” and
“Look! There’s Beyonce!”
"That is not she!
“It is so she!”
I see Taiwanese students use this all the time, and I’m always shouting at them to stop. Along with “there have,” it’s one of the mistakes I find most annoying. While “there have” comes from the Chinese equivalent being translated literally into English (like “give you” for “here you are”), “there’re” is more like when children learning English assume that the comparative/superlative of good is “gooder/goodest” while the language itself doesn’t follow that rule in that case.
As with there’ve, it’s a common spoken contraction for native speakers
Neither is currently considered proper for writing, but irregardless of what is currently considered proper language changes over time so maybe one day these spoken contractions will be acceptable in at least informal writing
Sure. I also have “there have” permanently written on the board, and I invite the class to ridicule anyone forgetful enough to use it. Some mockery from one’s classmates is a great incentive to remember the rule.
It’s a perfectly valid way to speak, in the same way Brits have mother without an R at the end (or, the way Americans insist on pronouncing the silent R). As an oral contraction it can’t be grammatically incorrect. Languages change over time for reasons, despite the best efforts of pedants and grammar nazis
But don’t put it on your resume or in an academic paper (actually, just flat out don’t use any contractions in an academic paper). In that context it would be incorrect
As is often the case with language usage, context is key
You’re being far too serious. With regards to “there have,” by the time students arrive in my class its use has often become habitual, so you’re not dealing with learning something but unlearning it. As such, greeting it with a fake howl of derision is no big deal if it contributes to breaking a bad habit.
I teach all ages as I’m a highly experienced teacher.
