English as she is spoke

Hmmm, I thought it was an appropriate colloquial construction. A Google search for “is forecast for” does generate a fair number of hits.

It’s journalese: “Who, What, Where, When, How”, as I was taught the rudiments of Hackery many years ago. Here New Haven is a ‘Who” because it’s the people in New Haven who will care.

Josh,

It looks like most of the examples in the google search you mention are of the reverse form– a foot of snow is forecast for New Haven rather than the other way round. (At least, 19 of the first 20 hits are of this form, and I didn’t check further). The thing to come being forecast for the place it is coming, rather than the place being forecast for the thing.

Presumably this is what Mr. Healy is nitpicking about, although why I have no idea.

Nitpicking an accusation of in a comment thread for a post, the entire content of which is to question whether someone else’s post is grammactical. The other post is one sentence long and based on the premise that repeating a weather report is worthwile and/or interesting. This seems like the paradigm of the blogosphere to me. And I for one wouldn’t have it any other way.

I’m sorry, did you say something?
I was still reading theat marvelous sentence above, which begins
“The thing to come being forecast for the place it is coming…”

I’ve heard that journalese checklist too. I’ve often wondered why they only use five of Rudyard Kipling’s “serving men” and don’t care about the question “why”.

I can’t be the only person who chuckled on seeing “Chaftez” in that odd “forecast line.

And, no, I won’t claim that I always avoid awkward sentences and misspelled names in my own work.

I found the “New Haven is forecast” construction somewhat odd. I think of “forecast” as functioning pretty much identically to “predict,” syntactically speaking, and I can’t get my head around “New Haven is predicted for 15 inches of snow.”

Weather this week is forecast for normal temperatures

Now that’s even weirder.

It still amazes me when someone with a blog says this about a blog post by someone else. Especially someone who has just posted about how many gas stations there are in the US and what the largest shark is.

There is a difference between criticism (which I didn’t intend) and genuine puzzlement (which I did). We each post about whatever tickles our fancy, to be sure, but if there is some point to this post that I am missing, and you don’t mind sharing it, I’d love to be let in on the game. If not, that’s fine too.

Okay. Thoughts on the answer? It looks like Josh’s use was intentional, and a smattering of google hits are in the same vein. Do you have some sense from these comments (or emails you’ve received, etc.) how widespread the use is?

Jet/Kieran:

I think nitpick is a regular verb, but intransitive.

Will you settle for that?

Maybe the idiom, “location forecast For weather”, is the brainchild of the same now-legendary headline writer who came up with “‘Newsworthy Comment’: Official”, which any literate person would rewrite as, “Official: ‘Newsworthy Comment'”.

The past tense of “cast” is “cast.” Maybe “forecast” is being used in this case as some kind of preterite imprecative. Perhaps it is formed as an analogue of “forsworn” or “forgone.” Examples:

“I am forsworn for England, my liege.”

“We are forgone for provisions as of Wednesday next.”

“The weather is forecast for snow, my liege.”