"All but..." and how no one has any idea what it actually means!
88 replies, posted
This appears to be a common misconception and i'm getting tired of seeing highly educated native English speaking individuals fuck this up on a kindergarden level.
let's take an example from a news article on IGN:
[quote=IGN]While the filmmaker did note he will continue to co-write the screenplays (the J.R.R Tolkien novel is to be adapted into two feature films) with Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens, any chance of him returning to the project after rights co-owner MGM/UA finds itself a buyer (the studio put itself up for sale back in November 2009) [U][B]is all but dead. [/B][/U][/quote]
what he is trying to say, is that there's no chance in hell that he will return to this film project.
what he is SAYING is that there is still a chance that he could return for this project sooner or later.
"All but..." means "everything except" which pretty much isn't how it's used. when saying "all but dead" it means that all the shit in the world has rained down your neck, but you're NOT dead yet. how hard is that to comprehend?
i can't believe i'm sitting here with my crappy spelling and grammer and appear to be the only one who has any basic clue about this term. what's happened?
I'm not posting this because of a single incident. there's just too many high profile characters that have no clue about this and i see this sometimes on FP too. yes, no one cares, not even i do... it's still annoying though. and this is how it is, get over your failed education then.
I don't know how you guys can't comprehend me... I'm doing my best (not really) to make sense.
All but, everything except, all except, everything but, anything but, anything except. Potato/pota(r)to.
let's add this: his usage of the term, and what seems to be popular among many Americans, equals to telling a girl that she's ugly as hell when you mean to say that she's pretty. these kinds of mistakes are what most often happens when you hand big words to little kids. it's very likely that it's an educational mistake that started in the lesser educated circles of America and just climbed the ladder. the rest of the world, Including Brittain, still understand the terms original meaning.
I don't understand you.
Speak for yourself. I've known what this means.
Hmm IGN failed me again.
no all but dead means like the possibility is still there, but its prospects are very low at this moment (like as low as they could possibly be without flat-out saying no)
as in the prospects for this happening are all but dead
But English is just so [i]hard[/i] :saddowns:
OP should've gone after the people that think of is the same as 've since I see that and people saying they could care less when they mean couldn't.
Who gives a shit?
Go talk to IGN, don't rant to us.
I all but get you..
Did i do it right? :v:
Fucking agreed.
[QUOTE=Stud Muffin;22277159]Who gives a shit?
Go talk to IGN, don't rant to us.[/QUOTE]
Because you need to learn too... some of you. no one cares, it's just annoying when it happens too often. If politicians or characters who conduct foreign communications fuck this up, shit gets bad fast. If a foreign minister, in the context of offering assistance, says "we'll do all to assist you but go to open war" the correct understanding would be that they are willing to assist in any way they can, but they will not participate in open war. but many people seem to understand this as "we'll only help you in millitary matters". imagine the shitstorm.
[QUOTE=Dapwnner;22277163]I all but get you..
Did i do it right? :v:[/QUOTE]
yes, yes you did.
"All but dead" means "more or less dead" in casual speech and while that's not completely accurate it's the accepted definition and will most likely continue to be.
[QUOTE=Zeke129;22277414]"All but dead" means "more or less dead" in casual speech and while that's not completely accurate it's the accepted definition and will most likely continue to be.[/QUOTE]
But, it's not the linguistic meaning of it and you would get a negative note from that use in an exam and people will think you're a retard for not knowing how to talk. it's called lingual context... it's college level. this is a mistake that's just as stupid as putting Ain't and no in immediate succession of each other in a sentence. it's flatout stupid.
it's not correct and it should only be used in casual speech (as you say), not articles and news reports. that's all i meant.
Er... i thought this was common knowledge?
[QUOTE=markg06;22277156]OP should've gone after the people that think of is the same as 've since I see that and people saying they could care less when they mean couldn't.[/QUOTE]
I hear this one all the time, and it makes me want to grind my teeth.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;22277476]I hear this one all the time, and it makes me want to grind my teeth.[/QUOTE]
i could take a look at that one in another thread... but people would hate it.
Think of it as "this object has so many qualities of being dead, it may as well be".
[QUOTE=Sitkero;22277148]But English is just so [I]hard[/I] :saddowns:[/QUOTE]
I'm Swedish.
Åker = Field and Åker = Rides (as in cars and trains)
Tomten = the Garden and Tomten = Santa Claus.
Val = Election and Val = Whale.
Don't talk about complex languages before you've learned Swedish. :downs:
Yeah, I never realised people got confused with, and judging by the responses pretty much everyone else does know what it means. OP shouldn't assume people are ignorant
[QUOTE=CoolCorky;22277494]Think of it as "this object has so many qualities of being dead, it may as well be".[/QUOTE]
well, then they need to use words that actually mean that instead of what they're doing now, don't they?
I know i'm nitpicking this, and i get the original meaning... but it's not proper linguistics for a news article.
[quote]Yeah, I never realised people got confused with, and judging by the responses pretty much everyone else does know what it means. OP shouldn't assume people are ignorant[/quote] I didn't mean to, but there's still a lot who do this, and definetly enough for this thread to be posted i think.
I would've been all but dead, had it not been for this thread.
[QUOTE=markg06;22277156]OP should've gone after the people that think of is the same as 've since I see that and people saying they could care less when they mean couldn't.[/QUOTE]
If I was so violently inclined I would murder the fuck out of anyone who says "I could care less".
[QUOTE=Herr Sven;22277518]I'm Swedish.
Åker = Field and Åker = Rides (as in cars and trains)
Tomten = the Garden and Tomten = Santa Claus.
Val = Election and Val = Whale.
Don't talk about complex languages before you've learned Swedish. :downs:[/QUOTE]
I've learned Swedish.
Swedish isn't even comparable to English in difficulty. Words with multiple and differing definitions is [i]nothing[/i]. Every language has those, and they're simple enough to deal with by just looking at the context.
[QUOTE=ThePuska;22278243]I've learned Swedish.
Swedish isn't even comparable to English in difficulty. Words with multiple and differing definitions is [I]nothing[/I]. Every language has those, and they're simple enough to deal with by just looking at the context.[/QUOTE]
A) I wasn't exactly serious.
B) Swedish has been officially classified as one of the hardest languages to learn in the world.
C) Stop trying to be elitistic, it's annoying.
[QUOTE=Herr Sven;22278282]B) Swedish has been officially classified as one of the hardest languages to learn in the world.[/QUOTE]
I don't know of an authority that you could call "official" in this matter.
[QUOTE=Herr Sven;22278282]C) Stop trying to be elitistic, it's annoying.[/QUOTE]
I'm not sure what you're referring to, but having some knowledge about languages is not elitism.
fuck 2000 posts next one better be good
[QUOTE=Kalibos;22277129]no all but dead means like the possibility is still there, but its prospects are very low at this moment (like as low as they could possibly be without flat-out saying no)
as in the prospects for this happening are all but dead[/QUOTE]
The possibility for me making a sentence after this sentence is all but unlikely.
See? I just made a new sentence. It was everything EXCEPT FOR being unlikely. Which proved to be true.
[QUOTE=Zeke129;22277414]"All but dead" means "more or less dead" in casual speech and while that's not completely accurate it's the accepted definition and will most likely continue to be.[/QUOTE]
It means everything except for being dead.
He may be beat to hell, he may look like something I spewed out last year, he may not be able to talk, but he's all but dead. His heart is beating and his lungs are breathing.
To be honest the phrase "all but" has taken on a new meaning, it doesn't necessarily mean "everything except" any more, because novelists commonly use the phrase. It has become more of a dialectic saying than anything else, as if when people say "like" often they don't actually mean "akin to" or "the same as", it's just part of their dialect.
When I was younger I remember questioning people on the meaning of this term, because the way they were using it didn't make sense. Of course they told me it meant what they were [I]trying[/I] to say, but the combination of words didn't amount to that, so I've generally tried to avoid using it.
Bleh.
It seems pedantic but OP is right and these things are just annoying. Rated informative for clarificaiton...
[QUOTE=Herr Sven;22278282]A) I wasn't exactly serious.
B) Swedish has been officially classified as one of the hardest languages to learn in the world.
[/QUOTE]
so have all the nordic languages, Finnish and Icelandic being the most difficult. ofcourse one should be smart enough to figure out that whoever conducted this investigation(?) is very likely to be a highly educated American or Brit with above basic flair for the 5 mainstream languages which relate to almost all other languages in the 1st world than the Nordic.
We're talking English, French, Spanish, German. these guys have then gone and analyzed many other languages grammatical and verbal difficulty and found that the Nordic languages were the most complicated vocabularies and retardedly difficult to pronounce. ofcourse, one could wonter how learning Chinese or Ga/Twi (west african) is any easier?
Life as a dane is fantastic... i can easily comprehend Norwegian and Auld norse (yeah, it's retarded wanting to understand that) i can extract basic meaning of Faeroysk and Icelandic. Finnish is a mess to me and Swedish sounds like japanese, i understand it very well, but their pressurisation and pronounciation just makes me think of some idiotic Honorbound Sensei.... it makes me sick. (nah, svensk er bra, det lydder bare some det rene hakkedak).
Bomimo's threads... An anonymous Dane with retarded grammar sorting out the English language for the natives. I don't think it will be popular, but should i attempt a thread on "'ve=/= of" and "Aint no =/= sense"? i feel more like leaving it be.
[QUOTE=ThePuska;22278348]I don't know of an authority that you could call "official" in this matter.[/QUOTE]
You know... Scientists.
[QUOTE]I'm not sure what you're referring to, but having some knowledge about languages is not elitism.[/QUOTE]
I'm also referring to the countless of times that you try to be elitistic in this and also other subjects. Example: I've never seen you make a comment about Language/Science/Politics that wasn't criticism, including many cases where you were completely wrong.
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