ESB

I was watching Barack Obama's inaugural address, and he had this phrase in it. But he pronounced it as "for expedience sake" (without the extra syllable) as opposed to "for expedience'S sake." Any comments?

Also, what does the phrase mean? Am I correct that it means "just for looks" or "for something superficial"?

I think it's allowable, in some cases at least, to use "for [noun] sake" without a possessive <'s> - as in the expression "for goodness sake". I'd say that Obama's choice sounds more elegant, because "expedience's sake" would have all those sibilants crammed together.

As for the meaning, it doesn't mean "just for looks". In context: "Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience sake." Expedience is the quality of something that is convenient and advantageous to us, even if it goes against our ideals; he's saying that we will not compromise these ideals, even if it's the easy or convenient thing to do.

Collins Cobuild Dictionary CD 2006

Expediency means doing what is convenient rather than what is morally right. (FORMAL)


A formal speech in which the speaker uses a 'tongue twister' would be a recipe for failure. People would find it difficult to understand, and the message would be lost.

English does not have to strict follow formal rules. English exists outside any rule based system. "English exists": people invent rules to describe its existence.

The language that Lazar is using:

"for [noun] sake" without a possessive <'s> - as in the expression "for goodness sake".

is outside the experience of most Native Speakers.

Sorry!

I meant to say (write):

English does not have to follow strict formal rules. English exists outside any rule based system. "English exists": people invent rules to describe its existence.

I am a Native Speaker, and yet I made a serious grammatical error in my written English. If I had checked what I had written I would have spotted it straight away. However 'spoken English' is checked and double checked, so it is not surprising that there are more 'grammatical errors' in spoken English than in written English.

Yes, Obama made a grammatical mistake. That's right, Obama screwed up! But don't fret, it happens to the best of us. Have you forgotten his predecessor already?

Another mistake:

However 'spoken English' is NOT checked and double checked, so it is not surprising that there are more 'grammatical errors' in spoken English than in written English.

Often people will say, when someone is speaking:

"I know what you are trying to say!"

<<The language that Lazar is using: ... is outside the experience of most Native Speakers.>>

I was describing the phenomenon in pretty simple terms; I'm not going to dumb it down.

I don't see why he didn't say "for the sake of expediency". Not only does it sound better, it avoids the "tongue twister" issue.

I think he used the expression in question because it sounds a little bit more formal or poetic.

I think he just made an error. It's no big deal and it's not surprising at all, it's not like it's going to become an Obamaism. Native speakers make small errors like this all the time.

He made no error; it was a stylistic choice.

Indeed, this page ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostrophe#Singular_nouns_ending_with_an_.22s.22_or_.22z.22_sound ) notes that it's a stylistic question whether or not to use a possessive form with words like "convenience" or "expedience" that end in an /s/.

Lazar, your Wikipedia link is about the discussion on how these forms should be WRITTEN (Jones' or Jones's).

Regardless of how they're written, my question is about how they are PRONOUNCED by the native speaker.

I, too, would look at "for expedience sake" as following the rule where a word that already ends in an S just gets a possessive apostrophe rather than a whole extra apostrophe+S, which forces you to add on an extra syllable. Because expedience ends in that sibilant sound, it actually SOUNDS perfectly okay to SAY "for expedience' sake" -- it's not until you write it out that it looks awkward, because there is no actual final S to hang that apostrophe on. But it sounds perfectly fine and native, especially when you are used to getting to choose between saying "Charles' party" and "Charles's party".

<<Lazar, your Wikipedia link is about the discussion on how these forms should be WRITTEN (Jones' or Jones's).

Regardless of how they're written, my question is about how they are PRONOUNCED by the native speaker.>>

Read the part where it discusses cases like "for convenience sake" - it would be absurd to suggest that someone would pronounce a possessive /s/ if there wasn't so much as an apostrophe written. The article suggests that this orthographic practice *follows* the pronunciation.

Again, I would say that Obama made a perfectly valid stylistic choice, whether we're talking about speech or writing.