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"For all that he has inspired many a mediocre imitator, the power and legacy of Tolkien, and the high fantasy he invented, cannot be understated."

The correct phrase is "cannot be overstated." I cannot overstate how common the erroneous "understated" variant has become, to the point it now seems likely to replace the original. The problem seems to arise from the trifecta of overstated being less familiar than understated, the difficulty of parsing the meaning of the phrase (which is basically "impossible to exaggerate") and—with apologies to Doug Piranha—litotes.

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I was actually confused by that for a moment when reading the article.

I think rants such as yours are good and important. Despite not being a native English speaker, I think English speakers should strive to hold to their language rules and not let globalism and less informed people like me take their rich vocabulary and correct grammar away from them.

The natives do it plenty to themselves, too. It cannot be <whatever>stated.

It is an entirely self-inflicted wound.

With English as a true lingua franca, I think us non-native speakers should feel some ownership too. It is the language we are required to speak when communicating with foreigners in a globalized world. I think we should see it as our language as well.

I don't hew to the notion that a people can "own" a language.

I agree with you, even as a native English speaker.

I reside in Northern Europe where almost everyone speaks truly excellent English with a kind of formidable grammatical correctness. However, it is definitely spoken as a business/technical/lingua franca and not as a beautiful, poetic language in its own right.

I would love the people who speak it non-natively to truly own it by learning and caring about the nuances, idioms and poetry of English. Know and care for instance what it means when you have me in stitches, or he's a square peg in a round hole, or they got her goat or when someone sighs about a path not taken or says Ay, there's the rub.

English is as much about these idioms and aphorisms as it is about making grammatically correct declarative statements like "They write an email. I train an employee. It costs 17 euros. They respect the treaty. She prepares a speech."

I think people care, to the extent they are familiar with the idioms. But what I think matters equally is that new idioms born outside of the natively spoken English should be seen as equally valuable, when they get a meaningful reach. I am thinking for example of "do the needful" which I understand being born in India. I don't hear it used except by Indian English-speakers but I think it should have equal status as your examples.

> But what I think matters equally is that new idioms born outside of the natively spoken English should be seen as equally valuable, when they get a meaningful reach. I am thinking for example of "do the needful" which I understand being born in India.

Yes! Absolutely! I agree 100%. English contains multitudes!

What does it mean? I think I have even heard it. Where did it come from? Like, a poem or ...?

Isn’t it more “nature calls” than a call to nature, so to speak ;-)

>I am thinking for example of "do the needful" which I understand being born in India. I don't hear it used except by Indian English-speakers but I think it should have equal status as your examples.

When my U.S. employer opened a technology center in Chennai, with the full intent of making two co-equal teams 12 hours apart, one of the first idioms our American staff learned from India was "do the needful." This is just to let you know that a whole bunch of very American tech people use this delightful and handy phrase all the time.

One of the marvelous things about English is that there are no official gatekeepers who determine correct English. It will happily absorb foreign or regional words and concepts. For instance, schadenfreude is probably now a proper English word despite its foreign origin. Often idioms and memes are adopted and propagated through popular entertainment. So if you want people to adopt and use "do the needful", one way is to write a popular and ensuring classic!

I alter my English when talking to non-native speakers. The primary goal is to be understood.

But 'international English' is not all how I talk to native speakers, or think to myself, or dream in. I'm quite comfortable with this split.

Huh, unlike "could care less", I hadn’t encountered this. Though, to play advocatus diaboli, could it be "can not" in the sense of "must not"?

I’m guessing that the bastardised “could care less” is an Americanism that is endemic to Internet discourse. Thankfully, I’ve never heard anyone say it out loud on this side of the Atlantic.

I'm sure autocorrect will fix that.

I have even heard “could care less” translated to my native language, so I think it’s a lost cause. The center cannot hold.

Never cared for the many linguistic convolutions of over/understatedness, as I feel I always need to solve an equation in my head to gain a basic piece of information. It’s no wonder even authors get tripped up.

Also “nonplussed”, which is its own antonym at this point, and needs to be sanctioned.

Wait a minute…

Heh, that is pretty funny.

> Tolkien's whole output has been less important than a single episode of Rick & Morty.

There, I understated his influence. See how easy that was?

I don’t usually worry about misspellings, my spelling and typing isn’t great, but it seems like here particularly Site instead of Cite as in citing a source is painfully common.

> my spelling and typing isn’t great

“Are not great”

Sorry, I had to correct somebody for something in this critique festival. You happen to be the unlucky winner :)

"If you think X, you've got another thing coming."

Another think, not another thing!

And it's harebrained, not hairbrained.

Both think and thing are considered correct (https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/usage-another-think-...). I use the latter because it's much more common in American English.

> I cannot overstate how common the erroneous "understated" variant has become

personal pet peeve of which i’ve written about before:

loose vs lose

two completely different meanings and pronunciations.

Loose and lose has different pronunciation?

loose for me is “loos” or “lewss” with an emphasis on making the “s” sound like “s”, versus lose sounding like “looze” or “lewz” that have a “z” sound at the end.

which is interesting for sure since “loser” still has the Z sound (mostly), and to make something less tight you make it “looser” with an S sound.

loose /luːs/

eg There were some loose wires hanging out of the wall.

lose /luːz/

eg At least 600 staff will lose their jobs if the factory closes.

Fun, I have a poor command of the English language and I spotted that. But then I assumed it must be correct. Thanks for pointing it out.

Now fix decimate. :)

Or teach people what it actually means. But i agree, it is one of those words who's uses in Modern English make me grind my teeth - and i'm not all that fussy.

Decimate is already fixed. It means to destroy a large number. It meant killing one in ten in Latin. But there are lots of words that have different meanings in the original language and have changed over time. This meaning is centuries old and the dominate one.

I don't know why decimate gets this pedantry. Maybe because it has interesting source but why not talk about the source. It is especially weird coming from online people who use new definitions all the time. Nobody is like the real definition of computer is person who computes. Or hacker is somebody who chops.

> the high fantasy he invented

This is an overly simplistic statement about a great achievement, which has had a long-lasting cultural effect.

I'm a little confused about why "cannot be overstated" fits better when the preceding phrase is an understatement. Can you explain?

Think about it if asked you to overstate Tolkein's achievements if they were great enough, no matter how hard you'd try, you wouldn't be able to over state them.

I agree that is the usage of "Cannot be overstated". I don't understand why you would apply a separate scenario from what was written.

"Cannot be understated" is a phrase used to emphasize the importance or significance of something. I think that applies. (Google - ludwig.guru summarizer)

I thi k maybe it can be used in both ways, like " I cannot overstate the importance of this" or "you can not understate what I just said" cannot as in "I am not allowing you to understate what I said". Idk, that's my most generous reading of it.

That sentence, taken as it is written, would imply the exact opposite to me. There may be dialectal differences, of course, but if there are then people are bound to misunderstand this.

If you cannot understate something, then any statement no matter how bad (for example "it is mediocre") is likely to be an overstatement. That's now how you would think of something important.

Double negations are always tricky. "Can not be understated" can more clearly be written as "easy to overstate".

English slang is full of double negations. A sentence such as "I didn't do no harm", which would absolutely mean harm was inflicted, can mean the opposite. So it may be good to avoid them as to not confuse non native speakers.

I could care less

The greatest irony of all is that most people misapply "ironic" when they actually mean "appropriate."

This is bizarre. I've never heard the incorrect version said before. Do people actually say that because it makes no sense?

It is possible that the author meant "cannot" as "should not", but I doubt it.

True, though using “can” in place of “should” or “must” would still be a mistake.

Verily, Tolkien doth merit my discerning gaze, yet alas, a mere imitator of middling skill, I hath proven to be.

I do not think this is a typo. Tolkien is very old school. Many people today do not share his opinions and world views.

Most old books, movies... were subverted and reinterpreted today, just look at starwars or Witcher. Huge corporation spend billions just for an opportunity to defecate on Tolkien's grave. But his legacy seems to be resistant to this sort of damage!

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