Hyphenation seems pretty optional to me, in a formulaic phrase like this. I guess I somewhat favor the hyphenated version.

Since I've already agreed to have the verb conjugated in the uses where it would be unambiguously unhyphenated, it sounds as though harmony has been restored to the unwritten style sheet of chrisweigant.com.

OK, where'd you find the phrase in the OED? I looked under "winner" maybe I should have looked under "take"?

All I know is, the entry for "will" was like eight pages long... that's a lot of reading with the magnifying glass! Luckily, I checked "willy-nilly" first...

:-)

-CW

First, let me welcome you to the site! Your first comment was held for moderation, but from now on you should be able to post comments and have them appear instantly.

The only caveat: don't post more than one link per comment, or it will automatically be held for moderation. This is to cut down on comment spam.

As for your point, you know I was thinking along the same lines: maybe the phrase just needs hyphens. After all, "dog-eat-dog" is rarely written without hyphens, and the hyphenation seems to put the phrase into a nebulous area in grammar, where rules are more easily broken.

I guess I could live with "a winner-take-all state," in other words...

-CW

me three. am i the only one who went into the family business?

And I thought I didn't have a life...D

Ditto... :D

Michale.....

Ha! Two teachers for parents here too, but my hereditary language instincts were so good they never had to correct me. **draws a pair of style guides from their holsters**

I'll be asleep at dawn. My circadian rhythm is all messed up from a minor bout of gastrointestinal distress a couple days ago. Soda (or pop, where I grew up) was easy to absorb, but left me wired when I should have been sleeping.

I'm not finding the exact phrase in either of the style guides I have on hand, but they do illuminate the subjunctive vs infinitive question. The Oxford Companion to the English Language describes relevant use of the bare infinitive (i.e. without "to") specifically as occurring with the helping verbs, whereas it mentions the imperative-sounding combinations "God save the queen" and "Heaven forbid" as the formulaic subjunctive. Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage says, "The subjunctive is preserved like a fossil in a number of fixed formulas — so be it, be that as it may, Heaven forbid, come what may, suffice it to say, and so forth". They also have a couple other examples I can list if need be.

OED, for those who don't have one at home, describes winner-take(s)-all as an attributive phrase, and notes the occurrence of both versions. "Take" shows up in examples from 1969 and 1972, and "takes" is in examples from 1973 and 1978. They also have versions that stand as a clause: from 1972 there's "In California, winner takes all" and from 1976, "The outcome was that winner took all".

I agree that if you make it a clause like that, it should have be changed to takes or took. It's only in its role as an adjective phrase that it has its natural affinity for the formulaic subjunctive. Of course, I recognize that by asserting this affinity I'm denying the strictly formulaic nature of the so-called formulaic subjunctive.

But OED is the definitive resource only for descriptive purposes. Webster is more prescriptive, but I don't have one.

Aha! We arrive at the crux of the matter, Sir.

It's your gut versus my gut, with drawn style guides, at ten paces. At dawn, of course.

Heh.

I still say "the winner takes all" is entirely correct, but concede that your "let the winner take all" is a strong contender as well.

-CW

OK, the "let the winner take all" sounds pretty good, actually.

However, it could just be wrong, and we've all read it so many times as "winner take all" that we're inured to the incorrect usage of it. New phrases are often coined this way, so that's another possibility.

Dang it, this was supposed to be a fun and easy column, and now you've made me think.

My English, truth be told, is totally gut-feeling. My gut, however, is better than most as I had two teachers for parents, and was corrected on proper usage all the time, growing up.

Anyway, I gotta get to work on the FTP thing...

:-)

-CW

It's just wrong: not morally wrong per se, not aesthetically wrong per se, not logically wrong per se, but just wrong. It's the wrong that all of those come from. Something in me rebels at the thought of even having to give a reason.

Is this what it feels like to be a right-winger?

You forgot "willi nilhi." My OED says it could have just as easily have come from "will I, nill I" or even "will ye, nill ye".

In the "I" and "you" ("ye") forms, "will" would be correct rather than "wills".

Or even from the form "be I/he/ye willing" rather than "I will" or "you will."

Also, isn't "he wills" only applicable for the exercise of the will ("he wants" or even "he tries to make" would be close), whereas "Will he?" is the correct question, when asking if someone is going to do something or not. "Will" is a much slipperier verb that "take" in other words, with far more possible meanings.

But thanks for the trip through the OED. Heh.

-CW

Anyway, please provide a stand-alone example which does not rely on: "if", "that", or "would", as all of your above examples do.

On second thought, I think it perfectly well could be the infinitive not the subjunctive, as in "let the winner take all".

In "Gin a body meet a body / Comin' thro the rye", that's infinitive, isn't it?

All I know for sure is that "winner takes all" is absolutely painful to read. It's just viscerally wrong, even though the pattern seems to only have the two examples.

http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/24486/status-of-verb-in-winner-take-all

On that page they mention the phrase dog-eat-dog, i.e. not dog-eats-dog, nor dogs-eat-dogs, and suggest that it's really the infinitive. Lousy ending-deficient language.

But isn't subjunctive usually dependent on the sentence around it? How can it be used as a standalone phrase?

I assume you're talking about present subjunctive, because past and future would be a different form of "take" ("that winner took" or "if winner were to take").

But I still say it's tough to make a case for a standalone subjunctive phrase of only three words without the context of a full sentence.

The full sentence, I supposed, would be: "X is a state where the winner takes all the delegates." That's where the short form comes from, at least the way I was interpreting it.

Good point about the comma, though, although "everyone" is a collective address, where as "winner" is singular. So, if I was speaking directly to someone, I might say "Frank, get out!" whereas "Everyone get out!" still seems better without a comma, because "everyone" specifies who "get out" applies to, rather than being a direct address. In other words, I think I chose a bad example.

Anyway, please provide a stand-alone example which does not rely on: "if", "that", or "would", as all of your above examples do.

-CW

Not "that he gives".

Ok, let's try specifically for "he take". Here we go: "would that he take from the richness of the selfsame vineyard an offering ..."
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cts=1330651794947&ved=0CCsQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fancienthebrewpoetry.typepad.com%2Ffiles%2Fkuttamuwa-inscription-lines-1.pdf&ei=MiJQT5mKGum60QGpuZjiDQ&usg=AFQjCNHg3Hh_0koxEIFZfVqvdusFORBo1Q&sig2=vJNXKxI9DeP_Xlqr6Px6vQ

Don't you mean "Everybody, get out!" or "Everybody: get out!"?

The actual grammatical form that's in "winner-take-all" is the subjunctive. We don't use subjunctive much. The only familiar one is "were", as in "if I were a rich man". Note that it's the same as the plural form. But if you were being so pseudo-Shakespearian as to try using the subjunctive form of another verb, you wouldn't say "I command that he goes ...". You would say "I command that he go ...".

In looking for a helping-verb-free example of subjunctive in the wild, as it were, I find "Would that he stay forever . . .".
http://whsc.emory.edu/home/publications/health-specialties/winship-magazine/fall11/would-that-he-stay-forever.html