Great, just what we need News Posted by Jonathan Capps on 11th September 2005, 15:23 An El Jay community dedicated to one person quoting Red Dwarf. Or perhaps you could just watch the episodes, instead.
Here’s a quote – Rimmer: ‘Smeg off, dogfood-face.’ Here’s another – Cat: ‘You’re gonna have to help me, man.’ Here’s another – Bill: ‘I did not have sexual relations with that woman.’ Now get to frak.
Usage Note: People have been using the noun quote as a truncation of quotation for over 100 years, and its use in less formal contexts is widespread today. Language critics have objected to this usage, however, as unduly journalistic or breezy. As such, it is best avoided in more formal situations. The Usage Panel, at least, shows more tolerance for the word as the informality of the situation increases. Thus, only 38 percent of Panelists accept the example He began the chapter with a quote from the Bible, but the percentage rises to 53 when the source of the quotation is less serious: He lightened up his talk by throwing in quotes from Marx Brothers movies. When it comes to language, “informal” is just a polite way of saying “wrong”.
So presumably a lot of the informal stuff on G&T (SHIT CUNT FUCK is *not* grammatical, after all) is wrong and shouldn’t be there because it doesn’t follow established guidelines? Don’t get me wrong. I’m a bit of a language nazi myself. But I wouldn’t go quite as far as informal = wrong. Unless you’re talking about standard English, which is fair enough – but not really what we’re talking about here.
TBH, I did just mean that last comment as a joke. But it’s true that, in formal discussion of language, the phrase “informal use” is often used to describe a formerly incorrect usage that has passed into common use. Such as, for example, using “quote” as a noun…
>SHIT CUNT FUCK is *not* grammatical, after all It’s not a complete sentence, but it could be argued to make grammatical sense so long as it was used in one. You could be describing the fucking of a cunt that is below-par as a “shit cunt fuck”. Indeed, either the fuck or the cunt could be being described as shit…
