At 03:09 AM 6/5/2010, you wrote:
>At 21.19 2010.06.04, you wrote:
> >Spehro Pefhany wrote:
> >> At 02:43 PM 04/06/2010, you wrote:
> >>
> >>> Wrong usage of "play nice". It should be "play nicely". Must use the
> >>> adverbial form.
> >>> - Xiao Xu
> >>>
> >>
> >> Sorry, but "Play nice" is idiomatic English.
> >>
> >> Googlecount("Play Nice") =3D 1.8E6
> >> Googlecount("Play Nicely") =3D 0.2E6
> >>
> >> More than 8:1 in favor of "Play Nice".
> >>
> >>
> >Maybe in America
>
>I second that. Unfortunately the (mis)use of =

>"it's" in place of "its", of "you're"
>in place of "your" is very common in the U.S.A., =

>I've encountered such horrors even
>in official documents. :P (as You can see, the =

>subject I used is "provocative" by will)

Too good affect, I'm sure. ;-)

>So I wouldn't use statistics (like the 8:1) to =

>actually prove something like this.

It shows that "play nice" is in rather common =

usage. Prescriptivists (spit) can argue
until they are blue in the face over whether it is "right" or not, but it's
quite an ordinary phrase. A higher standard would =

be finding such usage in the edited
portion of a stodgy newspaper, for example the New York Times:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=3D9901E6DD1E3DF932A25752C0A9=
6F9C8B63

Clearly this is _not_ considered an error in AmE. Perhaps informal or humor=
ous
usage, but definitely not an error. Using "play =

nicely" perhaps does not convey
exactly the same meaning and sounds overly formal to my ears.

OTOH, I can confirm by searching only uk sites =

that "play nice" is rare on .uk sites,
except when referring to things that originate in =

the US, just as Michael Watterson
said. The sample size is rather small though. I =

can see how it would grate on the
ears of those of the Rightpondian persuasion.

>Disclaimer: English is not my native tongue, and =

>I haven't studied it in school, I'm
>just self-taught but although all of this I try to speaker/write it correc=
tly.

Then I'm sure you've run into a lot of set =

phrases and idioms that make no sense or
seem to break rules on literal translation. I =

don't think English is unique in this
respect, but being a bit of a mongrel language, =

it may be worse than many others.
For example, it is a bit disturbing that my =

reference book of Chinese idioms is
quite a bit thicker than my Chinese dictionary.

BTW, theories of where this usage came from include baby talk and literal
translation from the German "Spielt sch=F6n".

>Best regards,

Spehro Pefhany --"it's the network..."            "The Journey is the rewar=
d"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com


-- =

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