THE For Emphasis?
April 24, 2009
It has come to my knowledge that there is this worrying trend among some folks in Malaysia of placing the definite article right after the word very. Though it’s grammatically wrong, it does follow the rule as mentioned above. Two examples that I’ve heard of are:
- Thank you very the much.
- I am very the angry with you.
I am aware that language use changes over time. In fact, I’m still trying to grapple with “You’re so fired” or “She’s so gonna kill you”. But are you so gonna accept this very the troubling phenomenon?
Do you think this trend is passing or it will catch on? I’d love to hear your comments. And I’d like to know how many of you have heard of this the phenomenon by taking part in my poll.
Entry Filed under: Varieties of English. Tags: definite article, The.
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1.
Ellison Ludan Muyan | April 24, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Never heard anybody use the before the article thus far. Hope I won’t hear it for the rest of my life.
Thanks.
2.
Periwinkles | April 24, 2009 at 9:08 pm
I’ve heard ‘the’ being used after ‘very’ for the most part of my life.
It makes me ponder sometimes but not hard enough to want to have a discussion on the matter.
For the past donkey’s years, I often heard ‘the’ being used after ‘very’ from the mouths of Chinese. Until fairly recently. I heard a non-Chinese utter it. And it got me thinking. Fairly hard.
In Hokkien, when we say something is very beautiful, it goes like this : Cin na sui. Hence, could the definite article ‘the’ have been used to replace ‘na’ as ‘cin’ means ‘very’? It’s not uncommon for me to hear “Very the beautiful”.
However, hearing it from a non-Chinese, a Malay to be specific, I have to rethink. In Malay, to compliment something that’s very delicious, we say : Sangat enak. ‘Sangat’ means ‘very’ while ‘enak’ means ‘delicious’. So when a Malay said to me, “Very the delicious”, where does the ‘the’ fit in?
Do enlighten me, Prof, as I so don’t understand. And I’m very the baffled.
3.
viv | April 25, 2009 at 12:36 am
I have heard “the” used after “very” so often that I use it to emphasize how vert the wrong it is!
Now how often have you heard someone say “thats mean” when it should be “that means”?
4.
Siew Hng | April 25, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Actually I hear “like” and “ddduhh” more often than “the”. For example, “I think that movie is so, like, really , really cool, like it’s the best thing that uh, like so far ” and “dduuuuhhh….”
5. 宝樱 speaks… « A Paw of Comfort | April 25, 2009 at 9:46 pm
[...] after the word very! You have to kick that habit for it’s grammatically incorrect. Do paw on Higgins to read more, and perhaps you’d like to take part in the [...]