Psychological vs Actual Statistics

[ajqtrz]

(More grammar than anyone probably wanted to know this morning)

That's a more complex grammar issue than it seems at first glance, and none of them is wrong, depending what the person intended to convey. "In the hospital" is a location. As in, "he is in the hospital, she is in her office" (or "in the office")

"In hospital" properly refers to the state of being. As in "he is in hospital, she is in office" (state of being). for variation, she is "out of office" (state of being) or she is "out of her/the office" (location)

Many people misuse state of being vs location (mostly by accident, sometimes becuase it conveys more information with fewer words^1) but the phrase itself is not necessarily incorrect without knowing what they intend to say (Alternate example: "He is sick in hospital, she is sick at home"

^1 Saying "he is in the hospital" tells you where he is, but says nothing about why. Saying "He is in hospital" provides the information that he needs to be there. He is not just there as location, but becasue that is his state of being. He is probably sick/injured and has to be in the hospital as opposed to just visting. So "he is in hospital" is a shortcut (weak, but embraced in common speech) for "he is in the hospital because he needs to be there." While Katwick's example conveys location and state in one longer but more accurate phrase: location=hospital, state=in bed.

Unfortunately, "in hospital" is "in the hospital" because the use of "hospital" as a state of being, is rapidly fading from English. "Hospital" as a state of being is not in general use, probably because we think of hospital as a place a lot more than as as state. At least in American English. And, interestingly, the article is generally not used in the same manner of denoting a location, in oriental languages, so when a speaker of those languages thinks of the location hospital, they hear it without the article. (Other language groups may do the same, I just know enough about oriental ones to say this). So, in fact, they are carrying their grammatical sensibilities into English. All perfectly normal in the great dynamic of language.

AJ

 

[Ashrem]

Unfortunately, "in hospital" is "in the hospital" because the use of "hospital" as a state of being, is rapidly fading from English.

AJ

I'm not sure I'd embrace "rapidly fading." It's never been as common in usage (which is unsurprising since the majority of English speakers likely do not understand the grammatical difference), but a google search for "in hospital" vs "in the hospital" still yields about a quarter of the results (140 million vs 360 million). "In hospital" isn't going away yet.

 

[Katwick]

"He is sick in hospital, she is sick at home"

^1 Saying "he is in the hospital" tells you where he is, but says nothing about why. Saying "He is in hospital" provides the information that he needs to be there. He is not just there as location, but becasue that is his state of being.

• IN THE hospital is going to last at least a few days.
• AT THE hospital is a temporary thing.
• AT home isn't temporary.
• IN home suggests a caregiver who is visiting IN THE home.

Ain't English fun!

 

[Ashrem]

• IN the hospital is going to last at least a few days.
• AT the hospital is a temporary thing.
• AT home isn't temporary.
• IN home suggests a caregiver who is visiting IN THE home.

Ain't English fun!

Of course, "in the hospital" only suggests a few days if you want it to and there is no context
"he is in the hospital, she is in the parking lot"
"He is in the retrieving his father's watch"

 

[Katwick]

Of course, "in the hospital" only suggests a few days if you want it to and there is no context
"he is in the hospital, she is in the parking lot"
"He is in the retrieving his father's watch"

How about "He was in the hospital, but now he's in an out-patient program at the clinic."

 

[Iyapo]

Muddy waters!

He was in hospital but they release him to out-patient care.

 

[BrinDarby]

maybee I should change it to "hand me the ball".... even tho the
construct is taught where location dictates grammer........ like
in, on, around, but the article "the" is used in many other places.
other languages like spanish denote masculine/feminine by using
el or la before a noun..... the ball , la pelota....

If a foreign country is developing content for the US audience,
then it prolly should use grammer condusive to the US..... yet the
distruction began by 2 american companies, of propper grammer
being mainstream......

"do the Dew " and "The Home Depot" are the culprits.... Now
Mountain Dew just used the slang, for "do" borrowing from
perscription use.... ( ok censors? ) yet TheHomeDepot really mess'd
things up because propper grammer can't be used.....

"I'm going to the store" yet we cannot replace 1 noun for another
in this case.... "I'm going to the The Home Depot" won't fly, even
tho "TheHomeDepot" is a propper noun collectively......

"hand me ball" vs "hand me the ball" , only the 2nd is correct and
it has nothing to do with " state of being ", I guess all I was saying
was that in 3rd grade, if I replied to my teacher.... " my dad is in
hospital" , I would've been corrected to " in the hospital ". Americans
may not use the king's english, but if you make a broadcast for
the american audience, then please use American grammer so our
children don't futher learn bad grammer from so called respected
jouralists...... ( and adults too, lolol )....

 

[Moho]

 

[mucksterme]

Well I had a few things to say about the supposed subject of the thread
But coming late to the party, after doing a judicious scan of the first page I skipped ahead to page 3
Which seems to have devolved into something totally different

So instead of discussing what I learned about customer satisfaction in various management seminars

I will instead just say

omg @BrinDarby
Maybe you should not discuss grammar

 

[ajqtrz]

Yep, we've been side-tracked, that's for sure. But it's been an interesting discussion and that's okay with me.

AJ

 

[Flashfyre]

<Narrator's Voice: It was at this time that the train they were all riding in jumped the tracks, careened over the verge, down the precipitous bank of the canyon trailing smoke and fire, clipped a large rock outcropping that cracked the engine open, somersaulted into the river and exploded in a ball of flame and steam, killing thousands of innocent denizens of the ecosystem and finally settled to the bottom, sinking into the odiferous mud. Life was never the same.>

 

[Katwick]

Off Track? We have tracks??

 

[Iyapo]

[MOD EDIT] @Katwick

 

[ajqtrz]

Off Track? We have tracks??

Guy in white shirt on the left, "All I asked for was a toothpick!"

 

[BrinDarby]

well @ajqtrz ,
I think you'd have to use the broadest deff for unhapy, to
cover all the negatives.... whereas happy would be all the
positives. I really can't see a poll with 20 choices, to determine
unhappiness .... as productive, or doable in a meaningfull
way. It would prolly end up a slider poll, from -5 to +5
meaning from unhappy to happy, and on a gamewide basis.

These days, in general, societies seem to congregate to
binary splits, therefore I'd almost expect both statistically
and psychologically for even the forum to come close to
the same thing.....In the end slightly favoring happy, rather
than unhappy..... Just because the loudest or most frequent
posters might give the impression more are unhappy, I'd
be shocked if that was actually true......

 

[Ashrem]

It's not about whether players are happy or not, or forum participants are happy or not, it's about the ratio of unhappy players compared to the ratio of unhappy forum participants. A very tiny percentage of all players ever come to the forums, and they typically need a reason to do so.

 

[ajqtrz]

@Ashrem It would be in interesting thing to investigate, as others have suggested, the initial posts of forum members to take a measure of those who believe the forum was a place to go to get questions answered (a positive reason) vs "I have something I want to get off my chest" (a negative one). I suspect it's about equal, but I could be wrong. After all, my estimate just a psychological measure, not a scientific one.

AJ

 

[Ashrem]

@Ashrem It would be in interesting thing to investigate, as others have suggested, the initial posts of forum members to take a measure of those who believe the forum was a place to go to get questions answered (a positive reason) vs "I have something I want to get off my chest" (a negative one). I suspect it's about equal, but I could be wrong. After all, my estimate just a psychological measure, not a scientific one.

AJ

Any data is interesting. Unfortunately, they are never going to share any data which expresses satisfaction rates among the players, so at best we'll have half the data we need.

 

[Deleted User - 849777001]

Oy Vey! My Texas Brain figgered all that out without a thesis! Yea me!