Gas. Saved my butt when the power went out in last week’s storm. Soup really warms you up when you’re effectively camping on carpet. Plus you can defrost your various body parts while it cooks
@TheGreatNico A pretty small generator or portable inverter pack should be capable of powering the electronics of a gas oven since it only needs low current 120VAC.
@kuoh@TheGreatNico
trouble with that is you would have to backfeed it to your breaker panel. And if you do that improperly it’s extremely dangerous for anybody working on the power lines.
@chienfou@TheGreatNico No, you just unplug it from the wall and into the extension cord to your generator. Gas ovens use normal 120v 3 prong plugs like most everything else in the house. Only electric ovens use 240v plugs or are hard wired. Same goes for gas dryers in case you need to do laundry.
@kuoh@TheGreatNico
Yeah, duhhh. Since I have a separate double oven (not part of a range) I was thinking hardwired. (plus mine is electric so there’s that too). You are totally correct in only needing an extension cord to make it work.
I wish it was gas, but phasing out gas in general is a good thing, so I’m OK with electric. I’ll end up getting at least an induction burner sooner or later.
Electric. I do like the instant adjustability of gas, but do not like the open flame. My father-in-law has gas stove, and I’m all the time catching the oven mitts on fire. And it’s too easy to turn the flames on too high to be good for the cookware. And his oven gets too hot on the bottom so everything burns on the bottom, even if you move the racks up.
That being said, I have a stand-alone induction cooker that gets way more use than my electric stovetop. It is super fast, instant adjustable, and programmable. I can have hot water on that faster than I can get it out of my kitchen faucet, which is on the opposite end of the house from the hot water tank, so getting hot water takes forever.
@katbyter My friend, a professional baker, puts a second cookie sheet under the one going in the oven when she makes things like biscuits. The second sheet gives enough insulation that the bottoms of the biscuits don’t get over-browned. Maybe it would help in your FIL’s oven if you could double up on whatever baking pan/sheet you’re using (it doesn’t have to be the exact same size).
I have gas (propane), but it’s an older model and the burners aren’t that strong and don’t evenly heat because of the gap in one area where the little sparker thing is, so I’d like a better one. It’s really handy for the frequent power outages, altho the oven doesn’t work without power.
On the other hand, electric and infrared units are getting better and more responsive, based on the ones I’ve played with in other kitchens, and our county has a buy in program for 100% renewable electrical energy, so it would certainly be better environmentally.
@stolicat Actually, if you think about it electric is probably is NOT better environmentally. The electricity you use is probably generated with natural gas, which if you are lucky, is what you use with your stove. With an electric range the gas is used to generate electricity at well under 100% efficiency and then is transported to your house with less than 100% efficiency. With gas to the stove, 100% of the gas goes to cooking.
In the future, when we get the majority of electricity from renewable sources (hopefully), your statement will be true.
@retasker I know the argument - it also applies to electric cars, which in certain states can be as polluting as a regular gas model depending on where your electricity comes from. We do have a program in our County in California that supplies 100% renewable (wind and solar) electricity, so aside from some issues with transmission facilities, it’s really clean.
I love gas. Flame is fun to work with, and there’s a reason it shows up in a lot of commercial kitchens - beyond being cheaper to operate in most areas. They also tend to be fairly fault tolerant and keep working about the longest in disaster situations, provided that the gas main doesn’t break. This past week bears that out; when we had no power, water, and even the cell towers were mostly down, the gas lines were full.
Induction is also pretty nice, but induction cooktops would not have kept the family fed during the blackouts like the gas one did. That said, it can be easier for a novice to get consistent temperatures on a moderate to good induction setup than a moderate to good gas setup. On a great setup of any kind, anyone should be able to get good results. If they pay a little attention to the directions or watch a YouTube video about it or anything, they will be fine either way on a moderate setup, but not too many people do that. You can ruin cookware on gas, and it’s a bit harder to do that on induction. I would have been reasonably tolerant of an induction cooktop in the new house, though I’d have pushed for a more robust camp stove and gas supply for situations kinda like the week we just had.
Electric coil heaters share basically none of the advantages of either and all of the disadvantages of both, and should be avoided if at all possible.
@phendrick Maybe it bothers me more than it should. Irks me but not as much as people in general not knowing the difference between an adjective and an adverb: “Drive safe”. No, it should be “Drive safely”. Or inability to get the case of pronouns correct: “They invited my wife and I to dinner”. No, it should be “They invited my wife and me to dinner”. Those are probably the two most butt-chafing grammatical affronts to my peaceful existence. Is bad grammar due more to laziness, fitting in with the great unwashed, or just plain ignorance? These rules are in existence to insure better communication – something we desperately need nowadays.
(Yes, I would love to be an official volunteer grammar nazi.)
@phendrick Language exists to convey meaning. “They invited my wife and I…” and “They invited my wife and me…” both convey the same meaning and pretty much anyone with a basic understanding of English would get the same message.
@brumagem@phendrick I’m with you on me/I, but the use of “adverbjatives” have some basis for existing - “Drive Safe” and “Stay Safe” refer to the state of Safe-ness, like “Stay Warm”.
@brumagem@stolicat I don’t buy your argument <“adverbjatives” have some basis for existing>.
First off, I had never heard the term before, but there are lots of terms & phrases on the Net I’m ignorant of. So I did a search on it. Duckduckgo found all of ONE reference to it. Then I reverted to the evil Google, which found one more – a whole TWO. (You must get around a lot to be familiar with the term.)
I recommend you read the more frequent one: https://writerinlimbo.blogspot.com/ It is a series of blog posts. (Most are interesting and are very well-written by a person who doesn’t quite identify herself, but if you search for your term, you’ll find the one I’m pointing to.) I agree with most of her remarks. In particular some quotes:
And that whole “language-is-evolving” argument has become the reason for each and every bloody-awful lazy spelling mistake, or punctuation abuse, or sloppy grammar usage. Yes, the language is evolving. Apparently, what it is now evolving into is a morass of muddy, incomprehensible, and thoroughly-confusing attempts at communication.
I refuse to believe that the only purpose of language is communication of immediate and shallow thoughts.
So there. I’ll judge you when you use poor grammar, because I’ll be wondering if you are too lazy, sloppy, or just out-and-out unintelligent to realize that you’re expressing yourself in the crudest possible way, without giving any thought to how you sound, and how other people will perceive your expressions. I’ll judge you because I’ll wonder if you’re incapable of coming up with a clearer, more accurate way of expressing yourself. And I’ll judge you because I won’t be able to help but wonder if you really are only capable of communicating on the level of icanhascheezburger.
Said much better than I could have.
But back to your comments. There is a difference between adjectives and adverbs. Each is a modifier, but to different parts of speech. To belabor the usage, adjectives modify nouns and adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs (unless any of that has changed since my high school days, which were lived in a quite different world.)
There is a significant difference between “he acted dangerous” and “he acted dangerously”. The adjective “dangerous” applies to “he” – maybe you had best be careful what you say to him. The adverb “dangerously” applies to “acted” – maybe he was on a rail-less balcony with a blindfold on.
“Drive safe” has an implied “You drive safe”, with the “safe” applying to “you” – for instance, don’t drive by the scene of a standoff between two gangs in Chicago; “drive safely” would apply to how you drive, but not necessarily where.
As you alluded, the adjective tends to imply getting to a particular state for the implied person (noun); I think the implied noun could be supplied by the listener in a lot of these cases – but that doesn’t mean it should have to be.
Picky? Maybe. But the aim of communication, as I once was told, is “Don’t speak so as to be understood, but speak so as to not possibly be misunderstood.” I strive to follow that advice in my speaking and writing, though it does take more effort.
@brumagem@phendrick I am willing to take your well-expressed criticism to heart, especially as I thought through why I would use the phrase “Drive safe”, and how it is actually starting to pop up in various media.
My (older) sister was an English major, and taught in Chicago-area high schools. colleges, and universities until her recent retirement. As the younger brother, I was particularly well-drilled on correct usage and communication, and she was a dedicated monitor of proper grammar at the dinner table. Yet, when we write and talk to each other we use a number of short-hand expressions, incomplete sentences, and odd word combinations in a way that family members and close friends often do. In particular, I’ve always been interested in the emotional effect of words and phrases used outside of their usual context, and the way they can lend a more personal feeling to an expression that is too often a toss-off.
I would certainly not write a letter to a congressional committee in the same tone and dialect that I write to my picky but familiar sister - I express in different ways according to whom I’m addressing. If I am in a comfortable situation, such as writing/talking with friends, co-workers, or responding to a post in a Meh forum, I’ll be a little loose with the grammar and maybe try to have a bit of fun.
“Stay safe” was not a common phrase, but has increased in use during the pandemic - it denotes a level of concern about someone’s well-being. Stay can certainly be a verb, and I suppose one could say “Stay safely”, but the meaning is to wish someone stay in a safe state, not to stay in a safe manner. Stay close with me on this …
“Drive safely” carries a bit of instructional weight, as it was often what we heard from a parent as we were about to take the family car out. I has felt that “drive safe”, borrowing the form and usage of stay safe, had a nicer, more concerning feel to it. To drive in a safe state, and yes, avoid that gang war, by all means! So safe is an adjective modifying the experience of driving, and also a call-back to the more traditional “drive safely” and a emotional link to “stay safe”. I would say it to someone I felt comfortable with, someone for who I had at least a bit concern for their well-being.
On the other hand, there is an extremely annoying radio commercial for a car company or maybe insurance, I’m not sure, that has a whole succession of people telling others to “Drive safe!”, and it strips away any added emotional context in it’s apparent attempt to sound cool, or at least some copy-writer’s idea of cool, and comes off as the “ …morass of muddy, incomprehensible, and thoroughly-confusing attempts at communication” so well-expressed by the Writer in Limbo and your own post.
So thank you for the referral to the blog - her entries are quite interesting and entertaining to read - and I will take care to write “ … so as to not possibly be misunderstood”, a practice I admit to not always following. Very good advice.
Oh, yes - “adverbjatives”. I made that up on the fly as I wrote the response, being quite proud at first that I’d thought up a new fake word - only to learn that it was as obvious of a trick as it seemed, and bolstered my suspicion that nothing is ever really new on the internet.
@brumagem@stolicat Thanks for that response. It did invest me with some extra insight into how/why people might phrase things the way they do.
As to “nothing […] new on the internet”, it couldn’t possibly go back past the mid-90s, so someone had to be the prime originator – i.e., it had to have been new at that time. This is just a practical observation. (Or, more formally, I could invoke the Well-ordering theorem/Axiom of choice, I guess.)
There are a multitude of new parents, but that shouldn’t keep anyone from being a particular proud parent. So I think you are entitled to claim some credit for the neologism – it definitely does give a name to the particular disease. (Akin to “Oxford comma”, which I am a big believer in?)
BTW, I don’t claim to have perfect grammar by other’s standards, or even necessarily by my own. For instance, you might note several times I’ve ended sentences with propositions, defying a taboo I don’t subscribe to. (Heh.) I can happily split infinitives (why not, the pieces are all there to whenever convenient be reconstituted). I don’t agree with the illogical rules about where you place punctuation within/without parenthetical remarks. The blog author wouldn’t approve, I’m afraid.
But I can be indignant when I witness several things. Like saying “bad” when you mean “good”. Used to be, you could be up for doing something with a friend. Now you have to be down for it. (?) Or what set me off yesterday was reading a program guide blurb for a movie on Lifetime (I think it was) that went something like “the situation threatened she and her mother”. That literally pains me.
I like proper grammer when language is used in formal situations. Court, govt, business, writing intended for publication (not including deliberate variations from the “proper” for artistic or expressive purposes) etc.
And I personally screw up plenty. As I just demonstrated, tho this isn’t a formal setting, and so I think it’s all just fine here.
But
Apparently, what it is now evolving into is a morass of muddy, incomprehensible, and thoroughly-confusing attempts at communication.
Is purest BS.
Almost all of the grammar-deficient speech and writing I encounter is perfectly comprehensible, in spite of many of legitimate possible edge cases of multiple meanings one might locate.
We all usually know what was intended.
And usually the damaging ambiguous usage I encounter (where no ambiguity was intended) occurs (in my experience) with so-called “proper” English usage.
Commonly, the prob just ain’t the fault of bad grammar.
I will follow and read those links tho. I just might not agree with every comment or argument made.
/giphy “it’s all good”
Btw, my keyboard hates me and knows I post at stoplights and don’t proofread much, and Google is trying to confound me (me, personally), so blame Google.
When we moved in, we had an electric range, which died as lockdown started. The only decent range we could get was another glass top electric, so we’re going with that until it dies as well. I guess it also saved me from having to plumb a gas line up into the kitchen as well, not that it’s too tough to do
Moved from NY where I had gas cooking (and gas heat), out to a place in Ohio with electric cooking and electric heat. I miss gas cooking - haven’t been able to successfully regulate heat on an electric stove after 5 years. I ended up buying an electric temp controlled griddle so I can make pancakes, omelets and other foods that were so simple to make on gas.
Biggest thing I miss is being able to toss peppers, onion, tomatoes and other veggies directly onto a gas burner to roast, or tortillas to heat up. Can’t do that on electric.
We have two properties with one of each and we cook… a lot. Electric stove top isn’t bad if you have proper cookware. Gas stove top is awesome for instant heat and instant off. I love to bake but our gas oven takes way too long to come to temperature and offers inconsistent results. We have a nice electric convection oven that works great and keeps a solid temp. I bake bread and my daughter bakes cakes and cookies. Everything is repeatable with the electric. We burn things with gas. I have been spending a lot of time with my offset smoker so there’s also that
gas, it’s old af (okay it’s more like “sort of old”) and you have to make sure the pilots stay lit. they’ll go out if you spritz the cleaner the wrong way or water boils over (nothing like having to stop in the middle of cooking dinner, find a way to take everything off the stove, lift up the top & re-light the damn things), and sometimes just because they feel like it. there’s no clock, no digital readout of any kind, no broiler, no self clean, and the knobs are disgusting feeling but can’t be thoroughly cleaned or replaced.
but i’ll still take it over a brand new electric stove any day. it’s not even so much the easy heat control as it is my ability to roast or blister various food items in the open flame.
(bonuses: works when the power’s out, softens butter sticks like a champ if you leave them on top when everything’s off, similarly the oven makes a great spot for proofing dough in the fall/winter as there’s no radiator in the kitchen.)
@jerk_nugget sounds like you have an old one with a central pilot light. I kind of miss those for all the reason you mention (and also the continually slightly warm oven), but they present some hazard if they go out. Newer ones have electric sparkers at each burner and need to be plugged in altho the burners can easily be lit with a match in a power outage.
@stolicat yup! it’s a blessing and a curse because although i love it for the functionality, i also have anxiety/ocd/ptsd so i already do a lot of knob checking in general, and the stove is on top of ancient carpet that my LL refuses to remove (despite promising he would when we moved in 6+ years ago) and the reason we’re here is because our entire building plus some neighboring ones were lost to a giant nine alarm fire before we moved here! so, i’m constantly poking, prodding, and otherwise examining the thing for anything out of the ordinary. i love to cook so i use it all the time, and i’m dreading it’s eventual demise. (bc as a bonus, we live in an attic and i’m 99% sure this was craned in through the kitchen window before the window was fully installed so…it’ll be a wild ride all the way around lol.)
We have a cheap apartment with a cheap electric range, and honestly it’s fine. Any range is gonna have its quirks and a learning curve for whether the oven/any burners are slow or run hot etc… Once you learn how to work your range, you can do anything (except maybe wok stir fry, you kinda do need a flame for that).
Also, I know I’d constantly worry about gas leaks if I had a gas range no matter how safe they are.
I prefer electric. A gas range means getting more pollutants in the house unless you have an actual vent hood that vents outside and doesn’t just circulate the air in your kitchen. If I ever built a house then I’d consider that, but I’ve never lived anywhere with one of those before, and consequently have always had electric ranges/ovens.
Apparently meh thinks gas or electric are the only options. I’ve done a fair amount of cooking over wood or wood pellet stoves, and some solar (over)cooking in the desert. Anyone who spent time in the Army probably knows how to cook with Sterno cans. There’s just a certain something about a good cuppa Sterno coffee. Maybe it’s the caffeine combined with the alcohol fumes.
I like gas for a lot of reasons already stated, but I have an electric stove. When I relocate, it will (preferably) be to a house with all-electric cooking and heat for one big reason: I’m old. Old as in a bit more clumsy and liable to interact badly with any open flames, and old as in losing my sense of smell that would tell me there was a gas leak or an extinguished pilot light. Old age and combustibles tend not to mix well. No more Sterno coffee for me!
I really love having a gas stove again, after a couple of very unsatisfying electric ranges. Gas gets stuff hot faster in my experience, allows you the opportunity to char without broiling, and as long as you have a lighter, it works without electricity. I like the idea of an induction range, too, but I have an induction hot plate, so I’ll stick with that and keep my gas for now.
@jitc I’m in my 50s and this apartment is the first I’ve had with an electric stove and I can’t stand it. But I think it probably matters more to people who cook a lot and like the control you get from gas.
We had an electric induction cooktop before our housefire back in April and loved it. We have a gas grill in the house we are renting while we rebuild and it takes so much longer to get to temp, boiling water seems like it takes ages. We will be going back to an induction cooktop in our new house. It gets to temp much quicker. It cooks more evenly. The surface isn’t hot to the touch when you remove the pot or pan. Cleanup is much easier.
The only con we’ve found is we have to be particular about which cookware we use on the induction cooktop since induction requires magnetic metals.
@walarney Did you check to see if the proper jets (the little nozzle that spurts the propane to the burner) were installed? They are different for natural gas and propane, as well as the air mixture setting. When we moved into this house, the stove top burners had been set properly for propane but they neglected to do the oven and broiler for some idiot reason, resulting in large, yellowish flames and the CO2 detector going off …
@stolicat Flipped the little button in the regulator over to propane. Adjusted the fuel inlet thingy all the way down to the stop. (It’s got adjustable valves rather than jets for the oven and broiler.). And opened the air window all the way up. Still way too much yellow flame. All of the factory authorized (warranty) repair people near me are only servicing appliances they sold (due to tech shortage due to covid-19). Got a phone number for manufacturer tech support but haven’t had time to deal with it. Really wish I just went dual fuel again.
I got a radar range.
Electric and I wish it was induction.
Its not a great range; I really want rosette burners for more even heat, but definitely preferable over electric.
Gas would have been great during the Texas snowpocalypse and power failure. At least the grill is gas, but it’s outside in the killer weather.
@hchavers
The gas pipelines froze in some places. Uninsulated lines and water in the lines.
Gas. Saved my butt when the power went out in last week’s storm. Soup really warms you up when you’re effectively camping on carpet. Plus you can defrost your various body parts while it cooks
Fricken oven needs power to run though. Electric valve bs
@TheGreatNico A pretty small generator or portable inverter pack should be capable of powering the electronics of a gas oven since it only needs low current 120VAC.
KuoH
@kuoh @TheGreatNico
trouble with that is you would have to backfeed it to your breaker panel. And if you do that improperly it’s extremely dangerous for anybody working on the power lines.
@chienfou @TheGreatNico No, you just unplug it from the wall and into the extension cord to your generator. Gas ovens use normal 120v 3 prong plugs like most everything else in the house. Only electric ovens use 240v plugs or are hard wired. Same goes for gas dryers in case you need to do laundry.
KuoH
@kuoh @TheGreatNico
Yeah, duhhh. Since I have a separate double oven (not part of a range) I was thinking hardwired. (plus mine is electric so there’s that too). You are totally correct in only needing an extension cord to make it work.
I wish it was gas, but phasing out gas in general is a good thing, so I’m OK with electric. I’ll end up getting at least an induction burner sooner or later.
My gas range allowed me to cook during the days of no power. We made chicken fajitas with homemade flour tortillas 1 of the nights.
Gas - when you turn it on, it’s immediately as hot as you want, and when you turn it off it’s really off. No waiting for it to heat up or cool down.
@Kyeh
yes…THAT!
Gas. Said nobody ever: “We’re cooking with amps now!”
Electric. I do like the instant adjustability of gas, but do not like the open flame. My father-in-law has gas stove, and I’m all the time catching the oven mitts on fire. And it’s too easy to turn the flames on too high to be good for the cookware. And his oven gets too hot on the bottom so everything burns on the bottom, even if you move the racks up.
That being said, I have a stand-alone induction cooker that gets way more use than my electric stovetop. It is super fast, instant adjustable, and programmable. I can have hot water on that faster than I can get it out of my kitchen faucet, which is on the opposite end of the house from the hot water tank, so getting hot water takes forever.
@katbyter
That’s why a gas cooktop, but an electric double oven, is what we have at our house.
@katbyter My friend, a professional baker, puts a second cookie sheet under the one going in the oven when she makes things like biscuits. The second sheet gives enough insulation that the bottoms of the biscuits don’t get over-browned. Maybe it would help in your FIL’s oven if you could double up on whatever baking pan/sheet you’re using (it doesn’t have to be the exact same size).
Though I imagine with all the recent power outages, you’re going to have more gas fans show up here.
I have gas (propane), but it’s an older model and the burners aren’t that strong and don’t evenly heat because of the gap in one area where the little sparker thing is, so I’d like a better one. It’s really handy for the frequent power outages, altho the oven doesn’t work without power.
On the other hand, electric and infrared units are getting better and more responsive, based on the ones I’ve played with in other kitchens, and our county has a buy in program for 100% renewable electrical energy, so it would certainly be better environmentally.
@stolicat Actually, if you think about it electric is probably is NOT better environmentally. The electricity you use is probably generated with natural gas, which if you are lucky, is what you use with your stove. With an electric range the gas is used to generate electricity at well under 100% efficiency and then is transported to your house with less than 100% efficiency. With gas to the stove, 100% of the gas goes to cooking.
In the future, when we get the majority of electricity from renewable sources (hopefully), your statement will be true.
@retasker I know the argument - it also applies to electric cars, which in certain states can be as polluting as a regular gas model depending on where your electricity comes from. We do have a program in our County in California that supplies 100% renewable (wind and solar) electricity, so aside from some issues with transmission facilities, it’s really clean.
I love gas. Flame is fun to work with, and there’s a reason it shows up in a lot of commercial kitchens - beyond being cheaper to operate in most areas. They also tend to be fairly fault tolerant and keep working about the longest in disaster situations, provided that the gas main doesn’t break. This past week bears that out; when we had no power, water, and even the cell towers were mostly down, the gas lines were full.
Induction is also pretty nice, but induction cooktops would not have kept the family fed during the blackouts like the gas one did. That said, it can be easier for a novice to get consistent temperatures on a moderate to good induction setup than a moderate to good gas setup. On a great setup of any kind, anyone should be able to get good results. If they pay a little attention to the directions or watch a YouTube video about it or anything, they will be fine either way on a moderate setup, but not too many people do that. You can ruin cookware on gas, and it’s a bit harder to do that on induction. I would have been reasonably tolerant of an induction cooktop in the new house, though I’d have pushed for a more robust camp stove and gas supply for situations kinda like the week we just had.
Electric coil heaters share basically none of the advantages of either and all of the disadvantages of both, and should be avoided if at all possible.
@jsfs
Amen!
Why would you wish for your oven to have been different only in the past? Damn robots are as ungrammatical as some people!
https://www.grammarly.com/blog/was-vs-were/
@phendrick Maybe it bothers me more than it should. Irks me but not as much as people in general not knowing the difference between an adjective and an adverb: “Drive safe”. No, it should be “Drive safely”. Or inability to get the case of pronouns correct: “They invited my wife and I to dinner”. No, it should be “They invited my wife and me to dinner”. Those are probably the two most butt-chafing grammatical affronts to my peaceful existence. Is bad grammar due more to laziness, fitting in with the great unwashed, or just plain ignorance? These rules are in existence to insure better communication – something we desperately need nowadays.
(Yes, I would love to be an official volunteer grammar nazi.)
@phendrick would you insure grammar with liberty mutual or State Farm?
@irish3md
ISWYDT…
@phendrick Don’t forget to add the misuse of “less” and “fewer”.
@phendrick Language exists to convey meaning. “They invited my wife and I…” and “They invited my wife and me…” both convey the same meaning and pretty much anyone with a basic understanding of English would get the same message.
@brumagem @phendrick I’m with you on me/I, but the use of “adverbjatives” have some basis for existing - “Drive Safe” and “Stay Safe” refer to the state of Safe-ness, like “Stay Warm”.
@macromeh That’d be #4 on my list.
“Less people showed up.” – yech! I guess each person was only a fraction of himself/herself.
@brumagem I ges ur gud with talking lik this? (y im not fond of texteeng conversashuns)
I ges u think rolin thru stopsines is gud to? (wut duz it hert if nowun iz cumin?)
@brumagem @stolicat I don’t buy your argument <“adverbjatives” have some basis for existing>.
First off, I had never heard the term before, but there are lots of terms & phrases on the Net I’m ignorant of. So I did a search on it. Duckduckgo found all of ONE reference to it. Then I reverted to the evil Google, which found one more – a whole TWO. (You must get around a lot to be familiar with the term.)
I recommend you read the more frequent one: https://writerinlimbo.blogspot.com/ It is a series of blog posts. (Most are interesting and are very well-written by a person who doesn’t quite identify herself, but if you search for your term, you’ll find the one I’m pointing to.) I agree with most of her remarks. In particular some quotes:
Said much better than I could have.
But back to your comments. There is a difference between adjectives and adverbs. Each is a modifier, but to different parts of speech. To belabor the usage, adjectives modify nouns and adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs (unless any of that has changed since my high school days, which were lived in a quite different world.)
There is a significant difference between “he acted dangerous” and “he acted dangerously”. The adjective “dangerous” applies to “he” – maybe you had best be careful what you say to him. The adverb “dangerously” applies to “acted” – maybe he was on a rail-less balcony with a blindfold on.
“Drive safe” has an implied “You drive safe”, with the “safe” applying to “you” – for instance, don’t drive by the scene of a standoff between two gangs in Chicago; “drive safely” would apply to how you drive, but not necessarily where.
As you alluded, the adjective tends to imply getting to a particular state for the implied person (noun); I think the implied noun could be supplied by the listener in a lot of these cases – but that doesn’t mean it should have to be.
Picky? Maybe. But the aim of communication, as I once was told, is “Don’t speak so as to be understood, but speak so as to not possibly be misunderstood.” I strive to follow that advice in my speaking and writing, though it does take more effort.
In general, I think we need better role models.
@brumagem I also recommend the article I referenced above to you.
@brumagem @phendrick I am willing to take your well-expressed criticism to heart, especially as I thought through why I would use the phrase “Drive safe”, and how it is actually starting to pop up in various media.
My (older) sister was an English major, and taught in Chicago-area high schools. colleges, and universities until her recent retirement. As the younger brother, I was particularly well-drilled on correct usage and communication, and she was a dedicated monitor of proper grammar at the dinner table. Yet, when we write and talk to each other we use a number of short-hand expressions, incomplete sentences, and odd word combinations in a way that family members and close friends often do. In particular, I’ve always been interested in the emotional effect of words and phrases used outside of their usual context, and the way they can lend a more personal feeling to an expression that is too often a toss-off.
I would certainly not write a letter to a congressional committee in the same tone and dialect that I write to my picky but familiar sister - I express in different ways according to whom I’m addressing. If I am in a comfortable situation, such as writing/talking with friends, co-workers, or responding to a post in a Meh forum, I’ll be a little loose with the grammar and maybe try to have a bit of fun.
“Stay safe” was not a common phrase, but has increased in use during the pandemic - it denotes a level of concern about someone’s well-being. Stay can certainly be a verb, and I suppose one could say “Stay safely”, but the meaning is to wish someone stay in a safe state, not to stay in a safe manner. Stay close with me on this …
“Drive safely” carries a bit of instructional weight, as it was often what we heard from a parent as we were about to take the family car out. I has felt that “drive safe”, borrowing the form and usage of stay safe, had a nicer, more concerning feel to it. To drive in a safe state, and yes, avoid that gang war, by all means! So safe is an adjective modifying the experience of driving, and also a call-back to the more traditional “drive safely” and a emotional link to “stay safe”. I would say it to someone I felt comfortable with, someone for who I had at least a bit concern for their well-being.
On the other hand, there is an extremely annoying radio commercial for a car company or maybe insurance, I’m not sure, that has a whole succession of people telling others to “Drive safe!”, and it strips away any added emotional context in it’s apparent attempt to sound cool, or at least some copy-writer’s idea of cool, and comes off as the “ …morass of muddy, incomprehensible, and thoroughly-confusing attempts at communication” so well-expressed by the Writer in Limbo and your own post.
So thank you for the referral to the blog - her entries are quite interesting and entertaining to read - and I will take care to write “ … so as to not possibly be misunderstood”, a practice I admit to not always following. Very good advice.
Oh, yes - “adverbjatives”. I made that up on the fly as I wrote the response, being quite proud at first that I’d thought up a new fake word - only to learn that it was as obvious of a trick as it seemed, and bolstered my suspicion that nothing is ever really new on the internet.
@brumagem @stolicat Thanks for that response. It did invest me with some extra insight into how/why people might phrase things the way they do.
As to “nothing […] new on the internet”, it couldn’t possibly go back past the mid-90s, so someone had to be the prime originator – i.e., it had to have been new at that time. This is just a practical observation. (Or, more formally, I could invoke the Well-ordering theorem/Axiom of choice, I guess.)
There are a multitude of new parents, but that shouldn’t keep anyone from being a particular proud parent. So I think you are entitled to claim some credit for the neologism – it definitely does give a name to the particular disease. (Akin to “Oxford comma”, which I am a big believer in?)
BTW, I don’t claim to have perfect grammar by other’s standards, or even necessarily by my own. For instance, you might note several times I’ve ended sentences with propositions, defying a taboo I don’t subscribe to. (Heh.) I can happily split infinitives (why not, the pieces are all there to whenever convenient be reconstituted). I don’t agree with the illogical rules about where you place punctuation within/without parenthetical remarks. The blog author wouldn’t approve, I’m afraid.
But I can be indignant when I witness several things. Like saying “bad” when you mean “good”. Used to be, you could be up for doing something with a friend. Now you have to be down for it. (?) Or what set me off yesterday was reading a program guide blurb for a movie on Lifetime (I think it was) that went something like “the situation threatened she and her mother”. That literally pains me.
Regards. Stay safe.
@brumagem @phendrick @stolicat
Fun fun fun!
/giphy grammar Nazi
I like proper grammer when language is used in formal situations. Court, govt, business, writing intended for publication (not including deliberate variations from the “proper” for artistic or expressive purposes) etc.
And I personally screw up plenty. As I just demonstrated, tho this isn’t a formal setting, and so I think it’s all just fine here.
But
Is purest BS.
Almost all of the grammar-deficient speech and writing I encounter is perfectly comprehensible, in spite of many of legitimate possible edge cases of multiple meanings one might locate.
We all usually know what was intended.
And usually the damaging ambiguous usage I encounter (where no ambiguity was intended) occurs (in my experience) with so-called “proper” English usage.
Commonly, the prob just ain’t the fault of bad grammar.
I will follow and read those links tho. I just might not agree with every comment or argument made.
/giphy “it’s all good”
Btw, my keyboard hates me and knows I post at stoplights and don’t proofread much, and Google is trying to confound me (me, personally), so blame Google.
Need another option on that voting thing…
We have both…
When remodeling farm house kitchen for wife, we put in two different ranges/ovens one gas with oven and one electric wall oven.
When we moved in, we had an electric range, which died as lockdown started. The only decent range we could get was another glass top electric, so we’re going with that until it dies as well. I guess it also saved me from having to plumb a gas line up into the kitchen as well, not that it’s too tough to do
Moved from NY where I had gas cooking (and gas heat), out to a place in Ohio with electric cooking and electric heat. I miss gas cooking - haven’t been able to successfully regulate heat on an electric stove after 5 years. I ended up buying an electric temp controlled griddle so I can make pancakes, omelets and other foods that were so simple to make on gas.
Biggest thing I miss is being able to toss peppers, onion, tomatoes and other veggies directly onto a gas burner to roast, or tortillas to heat up. Can’t do that on electric.
We have two properties with one of each and we cook… a lot. Electric stove top isn’t bad if you have proper cookware. Gas stove top is awesome for instant heat and instant off. I love to bake but our gas oven takes way too long to come to temperature and offers inconsistent results. We have a nice electric convection oven that works great and keeps a solid temp. I bake bread and my daughter bakes cakes and cookies. Everything is repeatable with the electric. We burn things with gas. I have been spending a lot of time with my offset smoker so there’s also that
POPSOCKETS! ROAD ROCKETS! SONNY CROCKETT! AWESOME!
@mediocrebot PUBS! GRUBS! TUBBS! SAUCESOME!
What’s it all about?
@ShandaSunshine
Ask Alfie.
@chienfou
gas, it’s old af (okay it’s more like “sort of old”) and you have to make sure the pilots stay lit. they’ll go out if you spritz the cleaner the wrong way or water boils over (nothing like having to stop in the middle of cooking dinner, find a way to take everything off the stove, lift up the top & re-light the damn things), and sometimes just because they feel like it. there’s no clock, no digital readout of any kind, no broiler, no self clean, and the knobs are disgusting feeling but can’t be thoroughly cleaned or replaced.
but i’ll still take it over a brand new electric stove any day. it’s not even so much the easy heat control as it is my ability to roast or blister various food items in the open flame.
(bonuses: works when the power’s out, softens butter sticks like a champ if you leave them on top when everything’s off, similarly the oven makes a great spot for proofing dough in the fall/winter as there’s no radiator in the kitchen.)
@jerk_nugget sounds like you have an old one with a central pilot light. I kind of miss those for all the reason you mention (and also the continually slightly warm oven), but they present some hazard if they go out. Newer ones have electric sparkers at each burner and need to be plugged in altho the burners can easily be lit with a match in a power outage.
@stolicat yup! it’s a blessing and a curse because although i love it for the functionality, i also have anxiety/ocd/ptsd so i already do a lot of knob checking in general, and the stove is on top of ancient carpet that my LL refuses to remove (despite promising he would when we moved in 6+ years ago) and the reason we’re here is because our entire building plus some neighboring ones were lost to a giant nine alarm fire before we moved here! so, i’m constantly poking, prodding, and otherwise examining the thing for anything out of the ordinary. i love to cook so i use it all the time, and i’m dreading it’s eventual demise. (bc as a bonus, we live in an attic and i’m 99% sure this was craned in through the kitchen window before the window was fully installed so…it’ll be a wild ride all the way around lol.)
We have a 5-burner gas cooktop in the kitchen island and an electric double wall oven. The best fuel for each application! (Yes, we like to cook.
)
We have a cheap apartment with a cheap electric range, and honestly it’s fine. Any range is gonna have its quirks and a learning curve for whether the oven/any burners are slow or run hot etc… Once you learn how to work your range, you can do anything (except maybe wok stir fry, you kinda do need a flame for that).
Also, I know I’d constantly worry about gas leaks if I had a gas range no matter how safe they are.
I prefer electric. A gas range means getting more pollutants in the house unless you have an actual vent hood that vents outside and doesn’t just circulate the air in your kitchen. If I ever built a house then I’d consider that, but I’ve never lived anywhere with one of those before, and consequently have always had electric ranges/ovens.
Apparently meh thinks gas or electric are the only options. I’ve done a fair amount of cooking over wood or wood pellet stoves, and some solar (over)cooking in the desert. Anyone who spent time in the Army probably knows how to cook with Sterno cans. There’s just a certain something about a good cuppa Sterno coffee. Maybe it’s the caffeine combined with the alcohol fumes.
I like gas for a lot of reasons already stated, but I have an electric stove. When I relocate, it will (preferably) be to a house with all-electric cooking and heat for one big reason: I’m old. Old as in a bit more clumsy and liable to interact badly with any open flames, and old as in losing my sense of smell that would tell me there was a gas leak or an extinguished pilot light. Old age and combustibles tend not to mix well. No more Sterno coffee for me!
I really love having a gas stove again, after a couple of very unsatisfying electric ranges. Gas gets stuff hot faster in my experience, allows you the opportunity to char without broiling, and as long as you have a lighter, it works without electricity. I like the idea of an induction range, too, but I have an induction hot plate, so I’ll stick with that and keep my gas for now.
@jitc I’m in my 50s and this apartment is the first I’ve had with an electric stove and I can’t stand it. But I think it probably matters more to people who cook a lot and like the control you get from gas.
We have an electric top, while it’s easier to clean than gas, depending on the pot the food heats up way to quick or way to slow.
We had an electric induction cooktop before our housefire back in April and loved it. We have a gas grill in the house we are renting while we rebuild and it takes so much longer to get to temp, boiling water seems like it takes ages. We will be going back to an induction cooktop in our new house. It gets to temp much quicker. It cooks more evenly. The surface isn’t hot to the touch when you remove the pot or pan. Cleanup is much easier.
The only con we’ve found is we have to be particular about which cookware we use on the induction cooktop since induction requires magnetic metals.
Gas is way better.
cant get broiler adjusted properly on propane conversion. will never do gas oven again. (cooktop, absolutely gas.)
@walarney Did you check to see if the proper jets (the little nozzle that spurts the propane to the burner) were installed? They are different for natural gas and propane, as well as the air mixture setting. When we moved into this house, the stove top burners had been set properly for propane but they neglected to do the oven and broiler for some idiot reason, resulting in large, yellowish flames and the CO2 detector going off …
@stolicat Flipped the little button in the regulator over to propane. Adjusted the fuel inlet thingy all the way down to the stop. (It’s got adjustable valves rather than jets for the oven and broiler.). And opened the air window all the way up. Still way too much yellow flame. All of the factory authorized (warranty) repair people near me are only servicing appliances they sold (due to tech shortage due to covid-19). Got a phone number for manufacturer tech support but haven’t had time to deal with it. Really wish I just went dual fuel again.