January 22, 2005

English as she is spoke

Posted by Kieran

Josh Chafetz says:

NEW HAVEN IS FORECAST for 10-15 inches of snow tonight.

Is this a colloquial construction I’m unfamiliar with, or just backwards?

Posted on January 22, 2005 09:47 PM UTC
Comments

I have heard this construction used by the weather reporter on one of my local TV stations (though not with respect to snow, since we’re in the Sacramento valley). I think it’s an attempt to avoid repetition of the same sentence structure, with unfortunate consequences.

Posted by TonyB · January 22, 2005 10:14 PM

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

Posted by Josh Chafetz · January 22, 2005 10:18 PM

Sounds okay to me.

Posted by Andrew Boucher · January 22, 2005 10:23 PM

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.

Posted by Backword Dave · January 22, 2005 10:26 PM

I’ve heard this too. Always with reference to weather, I think.

Posted by ogged · January 22, 2005 10:43 PM

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.

Posted by Will Baude · January 22, 2005 11:23 PM

Presumably this is what Mr. Healy is nitpicking about

“Nitpick” is an irregular verb of course. “I attend to details, You focus on minutiae, He nitpicks.”

although why I have no idea.

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.

Posted by Kieran Healy · January 23, 2005 12:01 AM

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.

Posted by washerdreyer · January 23, 2005 12:32 AM

<i. This seems like the paradigm of the blogosphere to me. And I for one wouldn’t have it any other way

Exactly. This is why blogs are truly a giant, global conversation. Have you ever listened to most conversation?

Posted by Kieran Healy · January 23, 2005 12:38 AM

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…”

Posted by Ajax Bucky · January 23, 2005 12:45 AM

No nothing bout English, but google gave me these:

Weather this week is forecast for normal temperatures

And a lot of rain.

But the forwards of CT beat the the Oxblog backwards with 5610 vs 38.

Posted by Luc · January 23, 2005 02:55 AM

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”.

Posted by P.M.Lawrence · January 23, 2005 04:27 AM

They do, at least that’s what they teach us budding Swedish journalists.

Posted by David Weman · January 23, 2005 08:57 AM

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.

Posted by Jim Miller · January 23, 2005 12:31 PM

Whoops, that’s fixed now.

Posted by Kieran Healy · January 23, 2005 02:11 PM

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.

Posted by Uncle Kvetch · January 23, 2005 03:15 PM

Kieren,

Maybe you meant “regular” instead of “irregular”?

“Nitpick” is an irregular verb of course. “I attend to details, You focus on minutiae, He nitpicks.”

How do you conjugate “nitpicks”?

Posted by jet · January 23, 2005 03:46 PM

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.

Posted by Will Baude · January 23, 2005 05:15 PM

Maybe you meant “regular” instead of “irregular”?

No, I meant “irregular.”

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.

I’m not trying to game anyone, Will. The point of the post was right there in the question it asked. I genuinely wanted to know whether some people regularly used the verb “to forecast” in the way Josh did in his post, or whether this was just — as it seemed to me at first reading — a mistake, with the subject and object of the sentence in the wrong place.

Posted by Kieran Healy · January 23, 2005 05:22 PM

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?

Posted by Will Baude · January 23, 2005 05:42 PM

Well, it seems like some TV weather forecasters use it. But if you ask me, I still think it’s backwards.

Posted by Kieran Healy · January 23, 2005 05:48 PM

Jet/Kieran:

I think nitpick is a regular verb, but intransitive.

Will you settle for that?

Posted by Kevin Donoghue · January 23, 2005 06:49 PM

Delete that comment, I hadn’t followed the link to Yes, Minister.

Posted by Kevin Donoghue · January 23, 2005 06:55 PM

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’”.

Posted by Dan Simon · January 23, 2005 10:39 PM

Thanks Kevin.

But it was quite amusing to have the person who called me functionally illiterate argue this point with me.

Thanks for the lesson Dr. Healy :P

Posted by jet · January 24, 2005 02:31 AM

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.”

Posted by HP · January 24, 2005 08:14 PM
Followups

This discussion has been closed. Thanks to everyone who contributed.