Hi, not game related question at all. I and a friend recently had a discussion about movies and so it happened we both could not remember exact name of movie "The pursuit of happyness". So my friend were quite sure it was called "Pursuit Happiness". I in contrary was confident that it is not grammatically correct to say that. So can somebody please clear that up? Is it right to say “pursuit happiness” without ‘of’ and does it have same meaning as ”pursuit of happyness”? Oh, by the way, I think it is obvious that we both are not even remotely native english speakers :) [Edited by - Ravuya on November 14, 2009 2:45:35 PM]

You can get a lot of artistic license when naming stuff. For instance, "The Pursuit of Happyness" is also wrong, and yet it's the title of a movie. Grammar has never stopped famous poets, either. In general it's not OK to leave out prepositions in English unless the entire term is a proper noun. For instance: Operation Flashpoint.

It must be said "Pursuit of Happiness". Pursuit Happiness doesn't make sense.

I may be wrong (my technical knowledge of english isn't great - even though i'm a native speaker), but I think Persuit is an abstract noun - not to be confused with 'to pursue', a verb - so it needs to be linked with a subject of some kind by using 'of'. In this case, happiness.

Your friend may have been confused with the verb pursue, which does make sense if you say Pursue Happiness. Like "I want to pursue happiness" or "We persued happiness".

"Pursuit happiness" doesn't make sense, but technically (although it sounds odd) you might say "happiness pursuit" instead of "pursuit of happiness."

The Happiness of Pursuing the Pursuit of Happiness.

:), alright I think I got it, thanks.

"Pursuing happiness" would also work.

I can see where confusion may arise, as "of" and "on" appear to be optional in some cases in American English where they'd normally be present (two cases I encounter frequently are "couple things" instead of "couple of things" and "day of week" instead of "on day of week" - for example, "I bought a couple books Friday" instead of "I bought a couple of books on Friday"). I don't know if this is strictly a regional issue or merely poor grammar.

Quote: Original post by benryves
I don't know if this is strictly a regional issue or merely poor grammar.

"Mistah Kurtz, he dead" is what it sounds like ^_^. But if a "wrong" usage becomes widespread enough, it eventually becomes an acceptable part of the language. It all depends on whether one subscribes to a prescriptivist or descriptivist view.

Quote: Original post by lightbringer

Quote: Original post by benryves
I don't know if this is strictly a regional issue or merely poor grammar.

"Mistah Kurtz, he dead" is what it sounds like ^_^. But if a "wrong" usage becomes widespread enough, it eventually becomes an acceptable part of the language. It all depends on whether one subscribes to a prescriptivist or descriptivist view.

Well, here are two examples from CNN: "Thousands of fans, many weeping, packed a Hannover, Germany*, stadium Sunday" and "This week in iReport we're celebrating a couple anniversaries".

________
*On an unrelated note, why are all towns referred to as Town, Country? I can understand why you may need to for small towns, but somewhere the size of Hannover?

Quote: Original post by benryves
*On an unrelated note, why are all towns referred to as Town, Country? I can understand why you may need to for small towns, but somewhere the size of Hannover?

I believe it's part of the AP style guide.