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Downvoted. There's no ISO standard for English, since language is a social phenomenon. "Correct" language is whatever the community of speakers uses in practice
by umanwizard 7y ago
Downvoted. There's no ISO standard for English, since language is a social phenomenon. "Correct" language is whatever the community of speakers uses in practice, not what someone claims is correct in a blog post (or even a book).
- simias 7y agoAnd the linked article showed you that, in practice, "a shambles" is perfectly correct English. It is therefore correct in a descriptivist sense. Beyond that prefixing your comment by "downvoted" is frankly silly and only serves to derail the conversation IMO.
- umanwizard 7y ago"a shambles" is not used (or quite rarely used) in North America, in my experience. Which was what the OP was asking about. You are of course right that "a shambles" is perfectly fine British English, but that's beside the point.
- kps 7y agoI'm in North America and have never heard ‘in shambles’, without ‘a’. If I did, I'd probably take it as uneducated sociolect.
- umvi 7y agoFascinating. I'm guessing it's a regional thing where certain parts of the US say "in shambles" vs. "a shambles" vs. "in a shambles". Not sure how it would be measured, but I think a /r/dataisbeautiful map would be interesting to see.
- plopz 7y agoNYC here, never have heard it with an 'a'. Its always just 'in shambles'.
- StuffedParrot 7y ago> And the linked article showed you that, in practice, "a shambles" is perfectly correct English. I'd think "in practice" would mean evidence of contemporary usage.